Taking LHA London's room bookings from a single generic form to a smart, filterable listing experience — cutting wasted enquiries for staff and frustration for applicants.
The Brief
LHA London is a charity providing affordable accommodation across 14 hostels in the capital. With no way for prospective tenants to browse rooms or check availability, their single generic enquiry form was generating high volumes of mismatched leads. The brief was to overhaul the discovery and booking flow to better serve both applicants and the LHA team.
My Role
End-to-end delivery: UX Research, UI Design, Wireframing, Custom WordPress Development (PHP & ACF), and system architecture.
The Problem
UX · Problem Discovery
The old website listed LHA's accommodations but gave users very little to go on — no live availability, no room-level detail, and no photos. It wasn't the intuitive, browsable experience people expect from modern accommodation platforms, and that disconnect was creating problems on both sides. Users were submitting enquiries for rooms they had little chance of getting, while the LHA team was overwhelmed with unqualified leads — particularly for high-demand rooms like singles. What LHA needed wasn't more enquiries, but better ones.
Research & Discovery
Competitor Audit · UX Strategy
To understand the booking experience users were already familiar with, I looked at how established accommodation platforms handle room discovery — particularly Booking.com and YHA, LHA's closest direct competitor.
Both offered a browsable, filterable listing experience as standard — with live availability, room-level photography, and clear pricing upfront. It confirmed that LHA's generic enquiry form was a significant step behind user expectations, and gave me a solid reference point for the patterns and conventions worth bringing into the redesign.
Design & Solution
System Architecture · UI Design
With the research pointing clearly toward a browsable listing experience, I mapped out the new user flow before touching any visuals. The key decision was how to handle availability — if a room was marked available, the user is routed to a Booking Form; if full, to a Waiting List Form. To reduce friction further, I built the system to pass URL parameters from the room card directly into the form, arriving with the Room Name, Hostel, and Room Type already pre-populated. The LHA team now receives clean, structured data with every submission rather than chasing missing information.
Mapping the intelligent user flow: utilising URL parameters to auto-populate forms based on live room status.
With the logic established, I moved into low-fidelity mockups to work out the room card format and overall layout — prioritising photos, price, room type, and a live availability badge, before presenting to the client for feedback.
Low fidelity mockups mapping out the new room cards and user interface layout.
The Results
Development · Outcomes
To make the system scalable and self-sufficient, I custom-built an Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) backend interface in WordPress. The LHA team can now independently update pricing, toggle availability, and manage room inventory without ever needing to raise a developer request.
By surfacing availability upfront and routing users intelligently based on room status, the volume of mismatched enquiries dropped significantly. Every submission that does come through arrives structured and actionable — saving the team considerable administrative time and giving applicants a much clearer, more honest experience from the start.
The redesigned room listings page — featuring live availability, room photography, and filtering by hostel, price, and room type.
