Our new digital platform: the key takeaways from the first few months of testing

The problem we’re trying to solve

The retrofit journey can often feel opaque and confusing for residents. They are navigating a process filled with unfamiliar steps, technical language, and contact coming from multiple different groups.  

For private homeowners or tenants applying directly to grant schemes, there’s the additional challenge of proving eligibility. Historically this has meant gathering a range of personal documents, and having to send each one by email or post.  

When the process is prolonged and confusing, we know residents are more likely to opt-out. Not because they don’t want or need a healthier, more comfortable home, but because the outcomes and benefits start to get lost amid the complexity.  

Our ambitions

Warmer Homes London uses a test, learn and scale approach, meaning we define the problem, build our hypothesis and test it safely alongside our delivery partners.  

Based on our delivery knowledge, and through workshops with borough and delivery partners, we knew making the journey simpler for residents was a foundational need. 

Our hypothesis was that a ‘digital front door’ for residents applying to the Warm Homes: Local Grant programme, designed for owner occupiers and private tenants, could help address this challenge. A digital platform would enable residents to manage the retrofit process from one place, providing greater visibility, clearer communication, and help reduce opt-outs overall.  

It would also be a single point of information for the Local Grant programme team, boroughs and contractors, enabling much more effective and supportive grant delivery.  

The steps taken

At the start of the year, Warmer Homes London, on behalf of the Warm Homes: Local Grant programme, procured the SharedWorks platform from Novoville to be the digital front for residents. However SharedWorks was originally developed as a contractor facing platform: so before residents could be given access, collaborative work across teams was needed to make it resident facing.  

This included developing understandable, easy to follow pathways for residents to move through the platform. Content was rewritten to be resident-first and less jargon heavy, with easier to understand calls to action.  

In July, a beta version went live to a select sample of residents, so they could complete their eligibility checks on the platform. Since July multiple rounds of user testing and research has been conducted with residents, to help us prioritise improvements to the platform.  

What we’ve found from the first few months of resident use:

Since July, around 2000 residents and the contractors have been invited onto the platform. 

What we have found so far in this first beta phase of resident use is that:  

• Residents are self-completing through the eligibility sections - whereas previously this process could take weeks via email, the digital platform has helped reduce the time taken for residents to submit their eligibility material.    
• A recognisable identity was highlighted as a key priority for residents, to build trust. 
• From resident testing, plain language and clear calls to action made a big difference. 
• Not all residents invited to create an account did so, so there are still opportunities to improve the onboarding process.    

What’s next

The digital platform remains in its beta phase: however, since the start of October, residents are now able to complete their entire journey on the digital platform. Resident testing remains ongoing, allowing us to continually evolve the platform based on feedback and usage data.    

The multiple contractors for Local Grant have also started to be onboarded onto the platform, starting with sample sets of residents who have been confirmed as eligible.  

As more residents use the platform, we gain much clearer evidence on what the tension points are for residents in the process: helping us identify where more targeted interventions could have the greatest impact.  

The digital platform will not be the one size fits all solution for residents, particularly those who are digitally excluded, or more vulnerable. To help support these residents, we are working with third party organisations to develop a programme of support.