Wakefield Council Website Development

Description

Summary of the work Following a discovery phase, we now require a team to create responsive website designs, content designs (templates), a style guide and content quality and design author training, new information architecture and deliver user testing supporting iterative outputs for alpha and beta phases for the development of the Council's main website. Expected Contract Length Approximately 3 months Latest start date Monday 26 September 2022 Budget Range £75,000 maximum excluding VAT (this will include any Supplier expenses incurred during contract delivery) Why the Work is Being Done The Council’s technology strategy has several pillars, one of which is ‘Improving Technology For Our Customers’. The Council’s web presence is a key building block and foundational element for enabling this transformation. Our website is overdue a redesign and does not meet the needs of our users. In particular, it is difficult for our customers to search for and access the correct information and feedback indicates the site is not visually engaging. We need a website that is accessible for all Wakefield residents, that is easy to navigate, more engaging, and with consistent content and design standards. It must be structured clearly and be mobile friendly. All of which will allow us to deliver a modern website and improve the user experience so that our services are more easily accessible. Whilst design is a key component in project delivery, we must also redevelop our information architecture and content design so information is easier to find and navigate. We also have a requirement for web author training in order to improve content design, quality and governance. We recognize that to achieve these goals we need to involve our stakeholders and users in the project to ensure our website meets their needs. Problem to Be Solved Our website content management system becomes unsupported in April 2023. We need a new visual design to make the site more appealing, and new site structure to make it clearer. The site must be fully compliant with the WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility guidelines. We recognise we need to make the content easier to read so we require a style guide and content quality and design training to support content authors. We expect the website design to be developed iteratively through user engagement. As we have very tight timescales we need to structure the project so content migration can begin as soon as possible. The website will be developed on Umbraco Cloud, which we have development experience with. We require delivery of template designs as responsive HTML. Our in house resources will implement these designs in Umbraco. In house web authors will rewrite and redevelop the actual content. We have a number of satellite sites which we will review and where appropriate redevelop them as sub sites within the main Council website. As such you will need to consider these as part of your overall design. Some examples of satellite sites are: - www.wakefieldtogether.org - www.twixtairandcalder.org - www.ourwakefield.co.uk - citizen.wakefield.gov.uk Who Are the Users As a resident, business or visitor I need to access information so I can engage with and/or carry out online transactions with the Council As an elected member I need to find information about my ward or the council in general, or to help residents find information and transact with the Council As a partner to the Council I need to find specific information about our partnership or about services we provide on their behalf or other information, for instance for schools. As a Council we need to be able to present our information, news and transactions in a simple and intuitive way As a Council service I need to be able to easily add and amend content on the main Council website, working to clearly defined content style and design standards As a member of the Councils communication team I need to be able to review and approve service authored content for the main Council website Early Market Engagement Not applicable Work Already Done Data analysis on website statistics to inform us on the number of pages to migrate. A discovery phase has been undertaken and provided the following recommendations: Improve the site search Make the site more mobile friendly Improve the site navigation. Develop a more visually engaging site Lower page average reading age Develop content and design standards and content management governance. Provide web author training Building in user feedback to site development There are multiple sites and CMS's which is difficult to manage Develop a core site with Council branded sub-sites All relevant recommendations must be part of the website design. Existing Team Communications and marketing manager Service manager - Technology and Digital Transformation Integrations and web manager Digital Communications manager Solution Architect Scrum Master Project Manager 4 Content Authors 4 Net developers The content will be re-written and created on the new site by the Council’s Communications Team. Back end development and implementation of design and templates will be managed by in-house web developers. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Experience of delivering user centred design with simple and clear user journeys. • Experience of developing designs iteratively via user feedback and testing, starting with prototypes and ultimately delivering final designs as HTML, CSS and JS. • Experience in designing aesthetically and engaging website designs • Experience in redeveloping Information Architecture for large information driven websites • Experience of accelerated delivery within specific time-frames using agile principles • Experience in handling personal data safely, ensuring it is protected and used in the right way. • Experience of creating content style guides • Experience of delivering website content quality and design training • Experience of working collaboratively with Internal communications and IT staff. • Ability to communicate with users and stakeholders clearly. • Evidence of building responsive and accessible websites to WCAG 2.1 AA standard or above Nice to Haves • Developer/design knowledge of Umbraco cloud • At least 2 years experience of working with a local authority or public sector partner. Work Location The expectation is that on the whole, the work will be delivered remotely however when working with residents or other stakeholders there may be a need to work with them in local Wakefield offices. Working Arrangments Mainly off-site, with occasional visits to our offices. Due to the agile accelerated delivery of the project, we would expect (on-line) availability for agile ceremonies (stand-ups and planning meetings) and project meetings and agreed timescales for responses to feedback/developments. Security Clearance You will have access to personal data, especially details of people whom you might engage with and who may not be Council employees. Suppliers must implement appropriate measures so that the processing meets the requirements of UK data protection legislation and GDPR. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Overall approach to this project including project management • How the proposal will use 'user centred design' to meet the needs of our customers, businesses, partners, and services - this must be the driver for the overall design. • How will the design guarantee the website is accessible to all users? • Proposed approach to developing the overall site design with stakeholder user testing. • Proposed approach to developing content designs or page templates with stakeholder user testing. • Approach to developing a new information architecture for the site. • Approach to undertaking stakeholder/user engagement • Approach to securing stakeholder support for the new designs. • Team structure • Information security measures in place to protect any personal data and comply with the General Data Protection Regulations. • How will delivery be done in an iterative and agile manner • Delivery plan with timescales for completion of outputs. • Approach to creating and delivering content quality and design training and knowledge transfer to in-house users. Ensure this is incorporated within your timeline. Cultural Fit Criteria • Work collaboratively as a team with our organisation and can work both remotely and on location, maintaining strong relationships and assisting successful skills transfer to the project team. • Take responsibility for their work, assuming ownership for mistakes and rectifying in a timely manner. • Provide clear and comprehensive communications, detailing work undertaken, blockages and/or solutions reached. • Be willing to provide challenge and offer alternatives in a constructive manner. • Proactive and engaged attitude when working with stakeholders. Payment Approach Fixed price Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. When this opportunity was published, the payment approach said 'fixed price'. Please note that this was a mistake. The payment approach is 'Capped time and materials (this will include any expenses incurred during contract delivery)'. 2. When this opportunity was published, the payment approach said 'fixed price'. Please note that this was a mistake. The payment approach is 'Capped time and materials (this will include any expenses incurred during contract delivery)'. 3. Would you consider an alternative to Umbraco, such as LocalGov Drupal? Not for this project. We don’t have any PHP developers so LocalGov Drupal isn’t a good technology fit and we can’t consider it at present. As we have .Net developers we’ve built up experience using Umbraco. 4. Is the project to only deliver designs, or are you expecting Alpha/Beta development too as part of this project? The project is to deliver website and content designs and we need these to be developed iteratively based on user feedback and/or testing. We will be responsible for development in Umbraco once the designs have been finalised. 5. Could you provide more specifics on the training objectives/desired learning outcomes for the web author training aspect of the brief? We are looking for a managed handover and some upskilling of our team so that we the design and templates that are you providing.  This would include an understanding of both the content standards (and correct template use) and design standards to enable us to publish content effectively, and to support a us in our desire to roll out a more distributed authoring model.