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NEW WEBSITE PROPOSAL

April 2016 By Martin Chaney, Manager – Hertfordshire Web and digital services

Web & digital services

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1) Overview

2) Understanding the project requirements

3) Project scope

4) Some ideas

5) About us

6) The WDS team

7) Our work

8) Our technology

9) Proposed approach

10) Response to requirements

11) Quote

12) Pricing structure

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Background:

HILS deliver hot meals and a number of other innovative services. A new website is needed to showcase and give customers access to these services.

The aim is to increase visitors and to keep them on the site, leading to an increase in page views, contacts and referrals.

In addition, the website must appeal to potential employees and commissioners and demonstrate how well run HILS is, and the quality of the services on offer.

At the same time, HILS are looking to address known issues with the current site by making sure it works on modern devices and browsers (and the old ones too) and is really easy for them to edit.

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Website objectives

Increase page views

Decrease bounce rate

Increase contact us submissions

Increase referrals through HCC website

Minimal number of clicks for key audience transactions

Website Requirements

Easy content management including: – Videos, Images, Google Calendar, Google Maps, PDFs/Word docs

Clear, and easy to use with well defined user pathways

Follow HILS brand guidelines and have clear sections for each service area

Easy to use and secure Contact us form with immediate send and workflow logic

W3C compliant

Fully mobile responsive

Integration with email subscription services (e.g. mailchimp)

Google Analytics

Social media feeds and buttons

Search

Able to display on older browsers including HCC IE9

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This proposal is for Phase 1 only as detailed in the brief:

Phase 1

Develop new site with clear information and clear calls to action:

a) Contact us forms to submit basic information for HILS staff to follow up

b) Link to Hertfordshire County Council website to submit referral for Meals on wheels

c) Link to North Herts District council website to submit referral for Herts Careline

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SOME IDEAS

We thought we’d have a go at a concept design….

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….and it turned out like this

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We make amazing websites

We’re a web and digital team specialising in easy to use, great looking websites. We provide a full service including creative, technology, strategy and planning. We’ve got your whole project covered.

We’re part of Hertfordshire County Council so we’ve got a wealth of resources available to us and we’ll still be around long after your project finishes to support you in the future.

As well as leading the design and development of the innovative new council website www.beta.hertsdirect.org, we’re also working on new websites for HertsHelp and WasteAware.

We focus on people, not technology

We focus on people. What do people come to your website to do? Where do they get stuck? What works well? And you – what is it you need your website to do?

Once we’ve done the research, we design solutions to meet both your needs and your customers’ needs.

Then we test and test and test with all kinds of people. We keep testing and improving until people think your new website is great.

Work fast, share early

We like to quickly create prototypes and share early. We find this makes things work better in the long run.

We have a talented creative bunch of content designers too. They can do the writing or provide advice on all things design – words, tone and voice, pictures, video, social media etc…

With us you get the same people you meet at the start of the project, working on it until the end. We think that’s the best way to work.

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THE WDS TEAM

Martin Chaney Manager

Martin has years of experience under his belt and a great track record of delivering websites and intranets that really work.

Brad Smith Technical lead

Smooth, reliable, modern and efficient is how you’d describe Brad and the systems and developments he looks after, offering experience both from the council and with a large charity.

Richard Smith User research lead (and Adult Social Care specialist)

Richard’s great at teasing out user needs and testing usability, and has worked closely with all Adult Social Care services

Bill Hooper Content and customer experience lead

Great content, design and customer experiences are what makes Bill smile like this.

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Outline a similar project that you have undertaken, your approach, the website, the outcomes of the development and a reference(we won’t contact them without first notifying you) (max 500 words)

Project: Libraries & archives objective: Redesign and reimagine the libraries and archives website to make it more modern, easier to use, answer questions and increase service uptake. This would be done by showcasing the services on offer and helping customers choose a service, whilst at the same time providing customers with easy access to the services they use regularly.

Our approach Research:

Content Audit of 680 existing pages and Google Analytic stats

Library visits - members of the public and staff at various libraries across the county

Intent Surveys – 856 responses to ‘Why are you here today?’

1:1 telephone interviews

Focus groups (Archives)

Analysed business strategy and agreed objectives

..continued

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Project: Libraries & archives

Development:

Customer generated and tested IA

Prototyped innovative solutions, refining and testing with customers

Delivered page templates and features

The website Key features:

Home page – straight to common tasks, log straight in or browse and discover

Ebooks – integrated with ebooks provider to display to most popular books, but also explaining the

difference between the two providers

Opening hours – making it really easy to find your library and work out when it’s open

Finder tools – to make it easy to narrow down a big list

Events - making it easy to find something to do, just for you.

Reference:

Andrew Bignell – Head of Libraries and Heritage Services

01707 281559, andrew.bignell@hertfordshire.gov.uk

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We use a selection of best of breed tools:

Content Management

We use Contensis for all our web content management. It’s really easy and intuitive to use and your editors can be up and running in minutes, writing content, uploading images, documents and videos.

That said, it’s also incredibly powerful allowing us to deliver all kinds useful features including the customer experience management platform, Populo, which allows us to serve personalised content to visitors of your website, improving engagement, increasing conversion rates, and boosting customer retention.

Search

Google powers our search, meaning you get the best in the business.

Analytics

We use the latest Google Analytics tools to measure the success of your website

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Outline project approach and ongoing account management proposals (challenge approach on page 12 if required) (max 400 words)

Project approach

In general, our approach matches yours, so that’s a really good start.

We believe in designing with data so, if possible, we’d really like to talk to some of your existing (or

potential) customers to gain a better understanding of their motivations, ideal experience and any

blockers they may experience. This would help to flesh out the detail around the various audiences

you’ve already identified. In addition we could also try a simple pop-up survey on your current website

to help us understand what customers are looking for.

We’d expect to have regular weekly catchups to keep on track. This would give us an opportunity to

share our ideas and develop them together.

Ongoing account management proposals

As part of our service you’ll have a named account manager to support you going forward. This will be

backed up by our friendly helpdesk (Mon-Fri 9-5) who can assist with “how to” and any technical issues.

We’ll also schedule quarterly reviews with your account manager to ensure everything is running

smoothly. This will all be documented in our agreement with you.

Phase 2

We’d also like to take this opportunity to mention that we’d also like to propose a solution for phase 2 in

due course. We’re doing all kinds of similar things on a range of projects so think we’d really add value

here too.

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Technical requirement Our response Content management: update text, update photos, add/delete

pages and change site map, embed media including –Videos,

Images, Google Calendar, Google Maps, PDFs/Word docs (for

download)

Fully met – Our CMS, Contensis, gives you easy access to update

text and photos and fully manage your page and their structure. It

can also handle images, Google Calendar and Maps and

PDF/Word docs for download.

New website must be clear, and easy to use with well defined user

pathways

Fully met – Our user led design and testing approach will create a

clear and appealing design that we can prove works, and delivers

your and your users objectives.

New website must follow HILS brand guidelines and have clear

sections for each service area

Fully met – we will comply with HILS brand guidelines and create

clear sections for each service areas

Contact us form must be easy to use, secure and immediately send

through to a designated email address (Email address to change

depending on selection on contact us form)

Fully met – the contact us form will be easy to use (example form)

and sent securely by an encrypted email server. Emails will be sent

straight away and can be configured to send to different addresses

depending on the selections made on the form.

Fully compliant with W3C standards for web accessibility Fully met – all code will be complaint to W3C AA standards.

Fully mobile responsive Fully met – all our websites are fully mobile responsive and tested

on range of mobile devices.

Integration with email subscription services (e.g. mailchimp) Fully met – mailchimp integration can be done. Other systems will

need investigation but are likely to work.

Integration with Google Analytics and further reporting (e.g. no. of

contact us forms submitted)

Fully met – we will implement Google Analytics on your site and

provide a dashboard to showcase key performance indicators.

Integration with social media feeds (Twitter) and social media

buttons (Fb, LinkedIn, Twitter)

Fully met – social media feeds can be embedded and so can the

buttons.

Search function Fully met – we will implement a search function using Google

technology.

Able to display on older browsers which may not be officially

supported (e.g. HCC currently use IE9 with Windows 7)

Fully met – your website will be tested against a range of browsers,

old and new, including the current HCC build to ensure it works.

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Fluffy requirement Our response The website must show that we are a well run, caring organisation

that will care for your loved ones

We will create a design that will deliver on all these themes.

To make sure that it does we will seek out these audiences and test

the design, refining it until is works for all audiences and objectives.

The website must show that we are an excellent organisation to

work for, and appeal to jobseekers

Demonstrate to commissioners we are the right choice for delivering

services

It must dispel the myths surrounding meals on wheels, that it is a low

cost, low performing service delivering poor food by people who

don’t care

Outputs Our response Increase page views We will help you optimise the content for search engines to help

discoverability of the site.

Decrease bounce rate We will create an engaging design that encourages people to click

Increase contact us submissions The design, and the content, will clearly explain the services and

encourage contact us submissions.

Increase referrals through HCC website As we manage the HCC website we can offer some exciting

solutions to achieve this goal e.g. targeting specific customers and

promoting the service in key areas.

Minimal number of clicks for key audience transactions Our design will be quick, simple and easy, avoiding unnecessary

clicks.

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Website design and build

Analyse current website

Lead workshop to develop IA and Wireframes

Develop IA

Develop Wireframes and mock-ups

Build

Advice on content & imagery, alongside HILS brand guidelines

Testing

Project management

Training for 2 editors

£5,000

Maintenance and ongoing hosting costs

Your own domain (if required)

Fully hosted secure website

99.8% availability

Helpdesk (Weekdays 9-5) – telephone and email support

2 editor licenses

Automated Google Analytics dashboard

Annual support and hosting

Service level agreement covering the above

£1,000 pa (fixed for two years)

Total year one cost: £6,000

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Outline what ongoing support/maintenance/hosting you would provide (max 200 words)

All prices exclude VAT

Prices exclusive of VAT

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Development costs outside of agreed terms

Item Daily rate (£)

Custom development 500 – 700 dependent on level of developer required.

Website strategy 300

Workshops, Usability testing Content advice

Content audit Graphic design Mock-ups Business Analysis Competitor analysis

200

Content design & creation 150

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Hertfordshire web and digital services

Martin Chaney

Phone: 01992 555673

Email: martin.chaney@hertfordshire.gov.uk

Web & digital services