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The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) has a shiny new website as of this Wednesday. Aerial drone shots of the territory now take up nearly the entirety of its landing page.
Revamping the entire website was a massive undertaking, said Justus Polson-Lahache, among those at Public Relations that led the redesign.
“There were maybe 200 pages that had to be reviewed and compiled and put into a new structure,” said Polson-Lahache, the director of the unit. “It was a long project.”
The process began over last year, and largely revolved around updating the content of the website. With that, nearly all the text found on the former website was rewritten from scratch, he said.
Though it was a complex process, it was at least not a costly one. The unit already has its own in-house web developer, so there was no need to contract it out externally.
“We worked very collaboratively, and we consulted with a lot of different employees and different units to get accurate information,” said executive administration officer Dawn Marquis-Deere, who also oversaw the project.
“It’s been in the works for a while, and I’m really happy to see the team’s efforts, seeing it come to light. It’s a very big accomplishment for them.”
The look of the website also had to be modernized in line with the band council’s branding, Polson-Lahache said.
The other priority was to make it simpler for community members to learn how they could access services without having to call or show up in person to get their questions answered.
In some instances, forms that would previously only be found in person at each unit are now accessible on the website, Polson-Lahache said. That includes a complaints form, which can now be found on the Contact Us page.
The former website also wasn’t easy to navigate from a phone or tablet, something that’s since been fixed, he said.
“Our focal point was access to information and user experience,” Polson-Lahache said.
The website is still a work in progress, he said. He said their team is looking to hear from community members about it, especially if they have any ideas to share about how it can be further improved. The Public Relations team can be reached through the MCK’s general phone line, he said.
“We’re open to getting feedback and making modifications as we need,” Polson-Lahache said.
miriam@easterndoor.com
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