Profile and website showing the heart of Huset Bergen

Huset Bergen opened in August 2022 with a unique concept in Norway: A user-controlled house for people in active addiction or undergoing rehabilitation.

Here, it is the guests themselves who decide what to fill the house with, and all staff and volunteers either have experience of drug addiction themselves or are relatives.

The most important keywords in their philosophy are citizenship, social belonging, hope, opportunity, unity and responsibility.

Huset Bergen is completely dependent on support to maintain and expand its unique offering. That's why they needed a website that speaks to financial supporters, informs relatives, reassures neighbors and promotes guests as valuable citizens.

Our solution was a website that makes it easy to donate, that informs about the offer and that represents and promotes the guests at Huset.

Since Huset Bergen opened in 2022, they have been joined by Huset Oslo and Huset Stavanger.

Citizenship as a UX principle

HUSET's most important digital communication channel for guests, i.e. drug addicts and former drug addicts in Bergen, is their Facebook page. "Guests largely live their digital lives on their phones, and they have and use Facebook. That's why it's the best channel to reach them.

Another important target group for husetbergen.no is stakeholders such as politicians, businesses, relatives and neighbors.

This doesn't mean that the websites are not adapted for guests. Quite the contrary.

One of the most important principles in HUSET's model is citizenship: Guests are full-fledged citizens like everyone else - and they should be treated accordingly. That's why it was only natural that the new website should be designed for guests, even if they are not its main users.

Drug addiction can often be a symptom of, or result of, mental or cognitive challenges. By accommodating these challenges, the sites will automatically work well for everyone else too.

In the design, we therefore applied UX best practices for conditions that affect cognition and attention. In short, it's about removing distractions, such as gestures and autoplay, and making it as easy and understandable as possible to use the pages.

They are also structured according to best practice for non-profit organizations that use the website to obtain funding and secure support. For example, "Become a supporter" is the clearest call-to-action and annual reports are highlighted to show financial transparency and seriousness.

Design: Street art and window views

The website should have the same atmosphere as the house.

The design is strongly inspired by the guests' interest in art. Especially the colorful expression in street art, which they themselves have used to decorate the interior of the house. This is reflected in the color expression, and most clearly in the hand-drawn elements.

The vivid expression is enhanced by Morten Hvaal's fantastic and honest photos of the guests at Huset.

Hvaal's images are displayed in frames inspired by the windows of Sverresgate 3. Visitors to the website get a glimpse of the life, warmth and environment inside Huset. Only one person is shown in the frames. This helps to highlight the guests as individuals, instead of just being seen as a group.

Stripped-down functionality

The sites are built to make life easy, not only for visitors, but also for those who manage them. In the backend, the admin environment has been stripped down, while the need to update content has been kept to a minimum.

There are only two functions that require timeliness:

One is the box with pictures from life at Huset. New mobile and Facebook photos can easily be added here to show guests and stakeholders that there is a lot going on.

The second is the notification banner just below the top menu. The banner, which can be easily switched on and off, has three modes: green, yellow and red.

Green is for positive news. Yellow is for serious news that is not life-critical. Red is for life-and-death news, such as dangerous substances in circulation.

The result is a website that helps Huset Bergen gather support, while highlighting guests as valuable individuals and citizens.