Kiswebs Ltd

Since 1999, Kiswebs has spent its working life on websites and online services for housing providers. It began as a general web design agency serving public and private sector organisations, but it soon narrowed its focus to the housing sector, and it now describes itself as a specialist in that field across the United Kingdom, including several housing associations in Scotland.

Why the firm stayed simple

The firm says that its early work convinced it that many of the elaborate designs of the late 1990s were a distraction. Its view is that visitors want the information they came for as quickly as possible, and that a housing organisation gains little from a site that impresses designers but slows tenants down. That belief still shapes the sites it builds, which are meant to be clear, accessible and easy to use.

PHARO and the housing sector content system

The best-known part of the business is PHARO, a content management system created with housing associations and societies so that they can update their own sites without returning to a designer for every change. The firm says the system was developed as a shared project, with the ideas for new features coming from the staff who use it every day. PHARO now underpins hundreds of housing sector websites, built over more than two decades, and the firm says that experience gives it insight into the legislation that affects housing providers as well as the design itself.

Websites and tenant apps

The core service is the design and development of websites for housing associations, built to be accessible for tenants and staff. The company also builds tenant apps, which give residents digital access to services from a phone, and it describes these as part of a wider set of self-service tools that make everyday contact with a landlord simpler.

Property search and rent payments

Two of the add-on services serve the way a landlord manages its homes. The property database search lets a landlord's homes be searched through the website, and the firm supplies training so that the organisation's own team can run it. Rent payment integration lets tenants pay through the website they already use for their other business.

Board portals and online applications

For boards, Kiswebs builds secure login portals where board members can log in to a secure area of their own. Training in managing the portal is included. The firm also offers online housing application forms, and in some projects it links these to the housing software an organisation already runs, so that an application made on the website reaches the right team without re-keying.

Hosting and security for housing sites

Each site is supported by managed hosting and security. The firm presents this as the ongoing part of the service, keeping the site available and protected after launch, so that the housing provider does not need to arrange its own technical support for the website.