An upgrade to qathet Regional District’s (qRD) website has modernized the regional district’s online presence.
Nancy Schmeister, qRD’s manager of technical services, said the new website was up and running on January 28. The goal was to have it fully operational by February 1.
Upgrading was an expansive effort, with representatives from each department having input into the process. The last time the website was updated was in 2011, so an upgrade was due.
“First, we established the team,” said Schmeister. “There were seven of us. This is what I love about this project; every department had its hand in this.”
Creation of the new website is an involved process. Schmeister said in writing the tender for the project, many considerations had to be made.
“It has been quite a process, because with a website, there is a creative side to it, there’s a design side to it, and a technical side,” said Schmeister. “The company we hired, we went through a very intense process to select them. They had the right balance for us.”
Array Web and Creative, from Nanaimo, designed the new site and had the right mix of staff to contend with regional district requirements, according to Schmeister. Interest in the project from bidders to develop the project was extensive. There were 22 in total.
After Array was hired, an initial meeting was held with the company.
“They came up and met with our whole team,” said Schmeister. “We looked at analytics of what was important; what most people are trying to target when looking for information. We built the framework with them. They did the design. There was a lot of back and forth.
“We did most of the content uploading and input was done by each member of the team. I worked to ensure we had one voice and one look. Working together, that’s what qathet means.”
Schmeister, who served as the continuity person, said she gives credit where it’s due because a lot of people “really stepped up.”
“Putting together a website is a detailed process and you really have to know your organization,” said Schmeister, adding that there was a great deal of staff input into its development. At one point, there was an entire wall of post-it notes detailing the project, she said.
Schmeister is pleased with the end result.
“It’s functional and works well on mobile devices,” said Schmeister. “The old site was not optimized for mobile devices; it wasn’t functional.”
The new website is the regional district’s primary communications tool.
“We wanted to put something out that we could be proud of from the moment it went up,” said Schmeister.
Users can access the new website at qathet.ca, rather than powellriverrd.bc.ca, which was the former web address.
