ACORD Website Design

Transcription

1 Request for Proposals: Terms of Reference (TOR) for re- designing ACORD Website Table of Contents I. BACKGROUND... 1 II. END- RESULT TO BE DELIVERED BY THE SERVICE PROVIDER... 2 Front end:... 2 Back end:... 3 Data Migration... 3 Overall... 3 III. SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS: Design a fresh homepage for ACORD Multi- Lingual Website (English, French and Portuguese) Site Map Logo and banner placements Content Description of Dynamic Content... 6 a. Country Pages... 6 b. Press Corner... 6 c. Blogs and Podcasts Content Type Interactive Features:... 6 Donation Form... 6 E- Newsletter List... 7 Newsletters and Templates... 7 Search Engine... 7 Send this document to a Friend feature... 8 IV. BENCHMARK WEBSITES... 8 V. Technology Platform... 8 VI. OTHER TERMS... 9 I. BACKGROUND ACORD (Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development) is a Pan African organization working for social justice and development in Africa, through a combination of practical interventions on the ground, people- centred research and policy advocacy. ACORD has decentralized country offices in 17 African countries that work with communities on livelihoods and food sovereignty, HIV and AIDS and the right to health, peace building and women s rights. ACORD also campaigns and engages in advocacy on these issues at Pan African and international level. ACORD believes that people have a right to a just and equal society and is committed to making that right a reality for people on the margins of African societies. We work in common cause with people who are poor and those who have been denied their rights to obtain social justice and development and be part of locally rooted citizen movements. 1

2 ACORD incorporates a variety of approaches to its communication work. A key focus is targeted advocacy; in essence we are of the view that advocacy means communicating in order to convince people to change. This means that advocacy must persuade people of the fact that there is a problem, it can be solved and they, themselves, should take action to contribute to the solution. Improving External Communication is one of the four pillars of the ACORD strategic plan. In that regard the ACORD website is one of the most important and cost- effective communication tools. ACORD s current website was designed more than three years ago, and there is a need to revisit and update it, to make sure it meets current industry standards and set ACORD fit to the demands in the years ahead. In this context, we invite proposals from established I.T. and web- designing Service Providers who have undertaken similar projects and would be able to meet the website designing requirements as per the TOR below. These TOR are the minimum requirements for this project to give a better idea to the Service Provider on the scope and deliverables set aside under the project. Service Providers are encouraged to include in their proposals, any additional features they think would be useful for our website and outreach and mention the additional cost(s) for the same in their proposal. II. END- RESULT TO BE DELIVERED BY THE SERVICE PROVIDER Front end: Create an eye- catching, easy to navigate website with options of being multilingual (English + French +Portuguese), robust and searchable website offering several interactive features to the visitors in the lines of Web 2.0 The colour, design and layout of the website should reflect the branding identity and character of ACORD as an established and professional entity. The website should be accessible to low- bandwidth users and should not require downloading of any specific fonts or programme for complete user experience. The website should have expert implementation of Call to Actions (CTA). The website should be built to be responsive (a customized view on all screen sizes, i.e. mobile, desktop, ipad/tablet) and have a neat implementation of flat design. The website should also have custom social sharing buttons, with flat design and responsive in nature. Implementation for this will be using sharing sidebar counters and a mobile sharing toolbar. These must be present on all articles/pages both on the website and the blog. Social validation; Nowadays, social sharing has gone beyond like our post. People know what likes are and how to give them. Now, the real measure of an article s worth is in the numbers; that if 1,000 people shared this article, it must be good. We must have this on every article page both on the website and the blog. Recommended content: This could be pop- up, a side vertical pane or a horizontal pane at the footer as well as a mobile version of the same. It gives the user a recommendation of the more content from the ACORD website they could read based on their preference. 2

3 Back end: Create a robust and intuitive customized Content Management System (CMS) based on our requirements. The CMS should allow us to manage and update the website (for instance, modify/create sub- menus, add/change content, update webpages) easily through sub- administrators who are not expected to have any special technical knowledge. A preference of use of an open- source CMS, more specifically Drupal, would be preferred. The CMS should have a highly user- friendly back end and the Service Provider should be able to facilitate future requests for customizations aimed at improving this. We should be able to update all the pages and sections (English, French and Portuguese) remotely but securely through the online CMS without requiring any external HTML editor or downloading of software. Also the text editor should give the user as many text editing options as possible, to ensure that a good impression is created for the front end viewers (website visitors). The website should be database- driven/modular so that it can handle all the existing information and be able to handle new documents that would get uploaded on it on a daily basis. There would be different rights for different users for the CMS. We expect there to be a super- administrator and several sub- administrators. The super- administrator should be able to provide/revoke specific controls over specific sections to the sub- administrators. The website should be able to integrate multimedia/web 2.0 content seamlessly. The website should be able to integrate with widgets from other sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, SlideShare, Vimeo and YouTube seamlessly. Key statistics should be available with regards to the number of website users, popular pages delivered, etc. The website design would also include the design of a blog, on a Wordpress CMS, which would be integrated with the website to display selected sections on the homepage. There should also be creation of customized templates, these could include survey forms templates; events/campaign pages; templates; newsletter templates; country program newsletter templates; subscription forms; petition pages and sign- up forms; and supporter and volunteer sign- up forms. The Service Provider can suggest others. The website CMS should integrate with our CiviCRM to ensure that forms that are used to collect information on the website (surveys, supporters, petitions, volunteers and subscribers, among others) automatically update this information on CiviCRM. The website CMS integration with our CiviCRM should allow for ACORD to be able to access detailed reports on campaigns. Data Migration The Service Provider should migrate all the existing ACORD data and content on the ACORD website on to the new platform. Overall The website should be secure and bug- free. The data should be held in a secure environment. It should be possible to regularly back- up the entire database and restore all the data in case of any errors. 3

4 The website should conform to major web- standards so that the website and its content can easily be indexed by major search engines and is accessible by different browsers. Also very importantly the Service Provider should ensure that their proposal covers how the new website will be line current and future trends. It is also very important to us that the Service Provider indicates what are their value addition services and / or products that they will offer to ACORD over and above the development of this website, during the contract period ACORD will engage them to develop and support the website & blog. There should be a seamless transition from our existing website to the new website without any loss of data. Care should be taken that old links get redirected to the new links or to the new website. III. SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS: 1. Design a fresh homepage for ACORD. The Service Provider is expected to design the ACORD homepage and interior pages to the satisfaction of ACORD. The design should be responsive, flat, neat, uncluttered and yet expandable to accommodate the changing requirements from time to time. We expect that at least three unique homepage and associated interior page design concepts would be submitted in the first stage. Once one of these three designs is selected by ACORD, at least three more variations would be provided of this homepage and interior page design before we finalize the homepage and the interior page design. The content on the homepage would be both statically and dynamically generated and manageable via CMS. For instance, latest news; updates on most popular stories; events; featured sections; social media plugins/widgets and blogfeeds (as explained later in this TOR) would get dynamically generated on the homepage. It should also give a direct access channel to the country pages in a visible easy to locate way. It should also present the multi- lingual options visibly and in a manner that is easy to find for users through a Languages section. 2. Multi- Lingual Website (English, French and Portuguese) The website will be in multi- lingual but will have a similar homepage and interior page design and similar site structure. The multi- lingual feature of this website should get embedded in the CMS so that it is possible to update multi- lingual content easily and deliver the correct language content to the respective web sections. It should be possible to switch between language versions easily without going via the home page. 4

5 Important: As not all content in English would be available in the other languages, there will be sections where no translation is available. These sections could either: Display the English content by default and, when translated content becomes available, the English content could be replaced by the translated version. OR Display that this content is not available or will become available soon, as per the situation We plan to decide upon either of these two options as the project progresses and how the resulting page appears to the audience. All translations would be provided by ACORD to the Service Provider. It would be beneficial if the Service Provider has had experience of working on multi- lingual websites. 3. Site Map The Service Provider will provide a Site Map. This Site Map will give a feel of the breadth and depth of the web content to be made available on the website. The Site Map for French and Portuguese Language Sections would be similar to the English section with some modifications since all the pages and applications may not exist in these languages. 4. Logo and banner placements The Service Provider would be provided with the logo to be used. Also, the Meta keywords to be inserted in the webpage will be discussed. The Service Provider should take into account that several logos and banners would appear on the ACORD website. These will include logos of: ACORD Donors and partners The countries It should be possible to rotate Banner Images on the website so as to give focus to different stories/campaigns at different times. It is also important to incorporate catchy designs for CTA for every Banner Images. 5. Content The website will have both dynamic and static content which should be manageable via the CMS. The main dynamic sections of the website are: a) Who we are: History, mission, vision, strategic plan, board members, assembly members, job vacancies b) Where we are - Country Pages c) What we do - Thematic Pages {Resources, Stories / Testimonials} 5

6 d) Careers {Jobs, Internships, Consultancies} e) Latest news f) Media Centre (press releases, media information kit, media mentions) g) Blogs and Podcasts (Categories) h) Resources (publications, videos, photo gallery) i) What you can do - (become a supporter, become a volunteer, donate) 6. Description of Dynamic Content a. Country Pages Each country will have its own landing page which will have an almost similar look to the main homepage, with a banner image slideshow which CTA links to latest stories specific to that country. b. Press Corner This will have mainly two sections: ACORD Press Releases and ACORD in Media. Information should be easy to add and update in both these sections. It should be possible for the press/media to get all the necessary information from this section, including information about events, contact details, images, etc. c. Blogs and Podcasts An ACORD Blog and Podcast section needs to be created on the website to allow addition of blog entries and multimedia content, such as digital audio and video files. An RSS feed should become available for audience to stay updated on the latest entries and allow easy cross- linking with other blogs and websites. 7. Content Type The following content type would be delivered through the website: 1. HTML Documents 2. Word Documents 3. Excel Documents 4. PowerPoint Documents {Integration widget to our SlideShare Channel} 5. PDF Documents 6. Photographs (jpg, gif) (Offer Integration to our Flickr Channel) 7. Audio Files (Podcasting, Vimeo or YouTube): Offer Integration to YouTube and Vimeo 8. Video Files (from Vimeo or YouTube).mpeg,.wmv among other formats: Offer Integration to YouTube and Vimeo 9. Blog Feeds (RSS ) 8. Interactive Features: Donation Form This will be one of the most actively used interactive features of the ACORD website. The Service Provider would be provided with the database fields for the online registration form. 6

7 Prospective donors should be able to donate online securely and uniquely 1. They should be able to upload image files. Further, they should be able to update or add information if asked for. The backend to this registration form should be a well- organized database, which responds to searches and queries made on it for any administrative purposes. It should be possible to add registrations received non- electronically into the database. The database should follow relevant privacy and data security laws. It should be possible to integrate a secure online payment routine within the registration form as and when required to allow attendees to pay using their credit card. The Service Provider has the option of integrating existing third party payment routines such as Paypal.com, 2Checkout.com, or direct payment routines on to the website. In either case, the information on payment should be searchable and should respond to queries. It should also be possible to issue refunds via the payment routine. E- Newsletter List The website will have a Newsletter Option with the following features: Subscribing to e- Updates Ability for subscribers to manage their subscription Ability for Administrator to create multiple mailing lists and import existing data into them. Ability to send HTML newsletters, archive them and link them to our website We expect to have around 5,000 ids in our mailing list to start with. Newsletters and Templates ACORD will have many kinds of newsletters to keep partners and colleagues updated on ACORD Country programme stories and Events among other templates. We would like the Service Provider to design templates for these newsletters based on the look and feel of the website and the fact that they may have content in English and in French. The Service Provider should design the template so that it is possible to create each issue of the newsletter by cutting and pasting the content from the website (without problems with colors, fonts and need for alignments) which could then be sent over to our mailing list. The idea is to have the process of creating the newsletter as manually easy as possible. Search Engine ACORD website needs to have a very good search engine to search content on specific ACORD content across all of them. Visitors should be able to do a comprehensive search on our website for any content, including documents uploaded on the website in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF format. 1 ACORD s payment solution is powered by WorldPay offering multiple payment options. 7

8 This should be a powerful search application so that any new content uploaded becomes searchable immediately and not a free application, like that of Google or FreeIndex. Send this document to a Friend feature Visitors should be able to forward our publications to their colleagues via . We welcome suggestions on any other related features that would be useful for this kind of website. The cost(s) for adding the same should be mentioned in addition to the quoted cost for the project. At the same time, it is possible that not all the above features may get activated immediately, so the option should exist to enable any of these features at a later date. IV. BENCHMARK WEBSITES For the purpose of comparison and clarity, the following are some of our benchmark websites in terms of functionalities: These benchmark websites should provide a qualitative assessment of high- quality work we are looking for. V. Technology Platform The Service Provider should be able to design the websites based on either of server requirements. The decision on the final server requirements would be made by ACORD at the time of awarding the contract. It is expected that the Service Provider has equal proficiency in both the options and the price quoted is the same, irrespective of the platform. 8

9 Database Server: MySQL 5.x MS SQL Server 2005 Client Side Environment: HTML 4.01/ CSS Java Script 1.2 Application Environment: PHP 5.0 ASP.NET 2.0 Application Environment Linux MS Windows 2000/2003 server VI. OTHER TERMS i. It is important that the Service Provider becomes familiar with our website needs and outputs needed, so that the best possible CMS can be developed which fits well with our needs and makes it simple to update and manage content. ii. The Service Provider shall provide complete migration support, that is our new website should be launched with all the content existing in our previous website. This means that the Service Provider should do an inventory of our web pages and include, in their final cost, the cost related to data entry into the new CMS. iii. The Service Provider will provide an operational guarantee on the CMS designed and also provide retainer support for at least 12 months after the launch of our website so that modifications can be made by the Service Provider if we find that the CMS is not fulfilling our needs or if further improvements are required. All troubleshooting required would be the responsibility of the Service Provider. iv. A formal contract based on the TOR will be signed between ACORD and the Service Provider. A Project Manager will be designated by the Service Provider to manage all queries and concerns. Similarly a Project Manager will be designated within ACORD. v. The Service Provider shall fully estimate the cost and requirements under this project. ACORD would expect all the terms of the TOR to be fulfilled as per the agreement and at no additional cost or changes in terms once the contract has been signed. vi. The Service Provider will be asked to provide references before final award of the contract. vii. Intellectual Property: The entire CMS with its source code belong exclusively to ACORD at all stages of the project and the same should be provided to the ACORD before the end of the contract. Also, the website design, contents, logo and images provided belong exclusively to ACORD. No use, modification, etc. can be made and reproduced outside of this project without prior written consent of ACORD. 9

10 viii. The price quoted by the Service Provider should be inclusive of all costs based on the TOR (including migration of content, retainership for 12 months). The Service Provider should also clearly state if any additional cost ACORD will have to pay on recurring basis, apart from those related to website hosting. ix. Any additional cost based on any additional feature not listed here should be clearly indicated separately. Service Providers are requested to send their complete proposals by to by December 17 th All queries with regards to this term of reference can also be forwarded to the same address. 10