Transforming Digital Access to Government Housing Data
The Province of British Columbia faces a growing housing crisis, worsened by the rise of online short-term rental (STR) platforms like Airbnb and VRBO. Thousands of housing units are being diverted from the long-term rental market, and local governments lacked the data and tools to effectively regulate or enforce STR policies.
Key Contributions
User & Stakeholder Interviews
Workflows & Journey Maps
Wireframes
Workshop Design & Facilitation
Usability Testing
Role
Service Designer
Duration
June 2024-December 2024
The Ask
The BC Ministry of Housing needed a centralized Data Portal that could aggregate STR listings and provide local governments and compliance officers with tools to enforce regulations more effectively.
My role was to lead User Research, Service Design, and UX Design to ensure the product aligned with user needs and policy goals.
User Persona and Journey Map to define and validate their end-to-end experience, digital touch-points, pains and opportunities.
2x2 Impact vs. Effort matrix to prioritize business requirements and design features for product backlog.
Human-Centered and Agile Approach
Learn & Observe:
Conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with local and provincial government staff to map enforcement workflows, identify inefficiencies and gather business and design requirements.
Polled 10 local government staff to validate assumptions.
Frame Insights:
Created user flows and journey maps to visualize enforcement processes and pain points.
Identified top opportunities for high-impact.
Explore Solutions:
Led 4 ideation workshops to co-design and prioritize solutions with government stakeholders, and design and development team.
Prototype & Test
Designed lo-fidelity wireframes
Facilitated 12 usability testing sessions across different stages of the product lifecycle, including live system and wireframe/concept validation.
Realize Value
Worked within an agile development environment to deliver quick, iterative insights.
Provide recommendations for development and implementation.
Presented to Product Owner, Senior Leadership and Project Team.
The Result & Impact
The project led to significant impacts across enforcement, adoption, and the housing market:
Deployed centralized data portal for local goverments across British Columbia for improved tracking and faster identification of non-compliant properties.
Delivered 7 product releases, increasing adptoption rate to 60% within the first 3 months of launch.
2,000+ non-compliant listings were removed since launch.
The system helped convert thousands of STRs back to long-term rentals and allowed municipalities to collect more tax revenue from vacant STR units.
