Summerside launches new website, adds 10 languages

The City of Summerside launched a new website Monday, which is meant to be more user-friendly, and has added information. The new site can also be translated into 10 languages.

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Lorri Laughlin, the city's director of communications, said the city had been working on creating a new website for more than a year, to replace the previous site which was completed in 2012.

"It was showing its wear. With technology moving so quickly, five years is quite a long time in the world of technology," said Laughlin.

More information

The new website has various new sections, which weren'tpart of the old site. Those include pagesabout doing business with the city, as well asways to get involved in community life.

Laughlin said the new website has "well over 600 pages." She estimated that the previous site had about half as many.

Any way that we can help newcomers to our community understand the city we're quite willing and happy to do that.- Lorri Laughlin

But even with so many pages, Laughlin said the site was designed with user-friendliness in mind.

"One of the things that we tried really hard to do with the website is to try to make it intuitive. So if you knew nothing about the City of Summerside, you could instinctively try to find the information," said Laughlin.

Translations in 10 languages

In developing the new website, another focus was to make it accessible to newcomers. While the previous site was only in English, the new site offers translation options using Google Translate. Laughlin said theservice may not translate perfectly, but she hopes people will be able to understand the key information.

"Any way that we can help newcomers to our community understand the city and the programs, services that they offer, we're quite willing and happy to do that," said Laughlin.

The city consulted with the PEI Association for Newcomers to Canada for advice on which languages to choose.

"They're most familiar with the new residents to the area, and what languages and what dialects of what languagesthey are using. So we really relied on their expertise there," said Laughlin.

Along with English, the site offers translations in 10 languages, including French, Tagalog, Mandarin, and Punjabi.

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