When housing infrastructure is discussed, the spotlight usually falls on the homes themselves, the repairs backlog and the investment needed to maintain property portfolios. However, another layer of infrastructure that is less visible yet just as critical is the digital products through which people interact with housing services.
These systems, either its reporting tools or application portals, are where housing needs are first expressed. They capture the signals that housing providers depend on to prioritise repairs, allocate resources and plan their future investments.
If these products are poorly designed, they distort those signals. If they are designed well, they ensure providers receive the clear, accurate information they need to deliver healthier homes, reduce backlogs and manage assets strategically. One can argue that design is infrastructure.
Healthier homes through clearer feedback loops
The quality of a home is inseparable from the quality of the feedback about it. If tenants can’t easily report damp, broken heating or leaks, those problems linger and worsen. Good design lowers barriers to reporting, guiding tenants to provide the right level of detail while validating key fields such as location, photos or urgency.
That clarity transforms maintenance requests into actionable insights. Asset teams can act earlier, addressing risks before they become health hazards. In this way, design functions as an upstream intervention for protecting residents’ wellbeing not by adding more resources, but by ensuring the information pipeline is trustworthy from the start.
Cutting backlogs with smarter workflows
While funding and workforce capacity are obvious factors for dealing with backlogs, backlogs can also grow because of inefficiencies in how information enters the system. A poorly structured portal may allow duplicate reports, vague descriptions or missing contact details. Poor collation of requests creates further friction in service delivery that staff must clarify or reprocess. Over time, this adds to delays and frustrates residents.
On the other hand, a well-designed system captures structured, validated information that flows directly into work orders. Clear status updates reassure tenants that their issue is being progressed, reducing repeat submissions. Every friction point that design removes is one fewer burden for stretched repair teams.
Stronger portfolios built on better signals
Managing a property portfolio mostly entails making strategic decisions such as which homes to upgrade, where to invest and how to align supply with community needs. Here too, design plays a role.
When housing search platforms and application forms are intuitive, they reveal genuine patterns of demand. Housing providers can see which types of homes attract the most interest, where applicants are dropping off and which listings consistently underperform. These signals, if captured reliably, are invaluable for portfolio management. They help leaders decide what to build, what to sell and how to allocate scarce resources for maximum impact.
Design as core housing infrastructure
Treating digital products as afterthoughts is no longer viable. Just as cracked pipes or faulty wiring undermine physical infrastructure, clunky portals and inaccessible forms undermine housing outcomes. They waste effort, hide need and slow progress.
Good design, by contrast, strengthens the system at every level. For residents, it means being heard clearly and acted on quickly. For housing providers, it means fewer backlogs and more efficient workflows. And lastly, for policymakers, it means cleaner, more reliable evidence to guide housing strategy.
The sector can’t achieve healthier homes, reduced backlogs or better portfolios without addressing this digital layer. Design is the connective tissue between people, assets and policy. If we want stronger housing systems, we must design those interfaces with the same seriousness we apply to physical infrastructure.
Because when design is done well, it makes systems easier to use and ensures homes are healthier, repairs are timelier and portfolios are managed with insight rather than guesswork.
Design is infrastructure and it is time we treated it that way.
Ayomide Ogunbayo is a user experience designer at WHG.
