VGFN

When the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation, a remote arctic community in the Yukon, first approached us about rebuilding its website, they were primarily communicating with citizens through Facebook and an archaic website platform that was designed for information storage not with a mobile-first, easy to navigate user experience in mind. The intention behind the new VGFN website was to be a place for community building and the revitalization of the nation’s language and culture.

Due to the nature of working with a community-oriented client, the approach taken for a typical website development project had to be adapted to ensure the decision makers, knowledge keepers and the community, as a whole, were engaged at critical points along the way during the development of the website.
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Through the process, we introduced more frequent touch points with the client, working sessions for brainstorming and co-creating layouts; and we dove deep into how users interact with the Government’s information and the constraints of living in the high-north, like low-bandwidth and older mobile phone technology. In the final phase of development, we implemented live-editing sessions, making updates in real-time, to advance the website development process.
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As a result, we developed a secure, attractive, modernized, and user-friendly interface with an easy-to-update backend that the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation will use to store important historical documents like its constitution and resolutions; as well as, community-focused resources like community events calendars and newsletters, in order to engage with its citizens residing in and outside of Old Crow.