The redevelopment of the British Museum website

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done Britishmuseum.org - built on an Alterian CMS in 2007 needs to be rebuilt and replaced. We seek a digital agency to design, build and implement the new website on Drupal (with Acquia) or Adobe Enterprise. We'll consider recommendations for support, hosting and ongoing development services. The initial site launch will provide a new look and feel, navigational structure, content and integrations to our eCommerce (Magento) and events (SharePoint) platform plus a front-end to our collection online service. In future phases, additional functionality for the web is proposed including multi-languages for key pages, searchable events timetable and content hubs. Problem to Be Solved The current website (including collections online search pages) is no longer fit for purpose and does not align with our user or audience needs, or meet organisational priorities and goals. The design and user-experience has not been updated since 2011 and isn't mobile responsive. It doesn't adhere to the latest best-practice standards in design or UX. Furthermore, the site suffers from content bloat, poor navigation (leading to issues of findability) and is not optimised for conversion or SEO. The new vision includes increasing access to our collection, creation of engaging user experiences and support for the Museum’s strategy and plan. Who Are the Users The users of the website , including the collection online search pages, fall into three broad categories: visitors, academics and employees. As part of our ambition for the new site, we are keen to attract other audiences who might not be able to visit the Museum in Bloomsbury (digital-only) or audiences who want richer narratives or more exploratory means to indulge their interest, learn about history, or those who are simply curious about the latest in our collection and the stories that surround them . User stories have already been captured as part of our discovery work. Early Market Engagement As part of our discovery work and options appraisal with our internal Business Analyst team, we carried out a series of consultations with peer organisations to identify technological choices and the decisions behind them across the sector. Once we were clearer on our preferred options, a digital development agency was engaged to provide technical consultation and validation against our cost estimates and recommendations. This has lead us to conclude that to align with our requirements we want to proceed with either an Drupal (with Acquia) or Adobe Enterprise solution. Work Already Done A previous project to replatform and rebuild the site that was aborted in early 2017, has yielded a significant amount of development work on the design, creating multiple assets including content models and front-end design that we would like to repurpose. Earlier this year we conducted a new discovery phase to re-establish what we were setting out to achieve and this has culminated in a new vision and objectives for the website, high level requirements, user stories and technical options and recommendations. Existing Team The website project (internally) will be managed by the digital programme delivery team which will include the following roles: Head of Digital Programme Delivery Project Manager Website Project Assistant Content Producer Business Analyst Editorial Manager - Web IS Team - Support and Technical Additionally, we have several stakeholders and SME experts across the business who might be called on as required. It isn't anticipated that the supplier will work with any other agencies. Current Phase Discovery Work Location The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London Working Arrangments It is expected to be a mixture of on-site and off-site working. If on-site, the contractor will be working at the British Museum site in London. We would expect regular weekly progress calls as well as show and tell sessions (pre-scheduled) as the project progresses. The BM team can also spend time onsite at the supplier's location if required. Security Clearance Baseline Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) clearance will be required before commencement of work. Additional T&Cs Any additional terms and conditions will be confirmed during final contract negotiations. Skills & Experience Demonstrable experience (3 live site examples) and track record in building and developing large, consumer facing responsive websites, on either Drupal (7 +) or Adobe Essential CMS platforms. Ability to use existing designs (built in Sketch), as the starting point for all other design work. Demonstrate experience and examples of great design work. Is a full service digital agency with a full complement of roles such as IA, UX, technical, build, development and support. Has experience of migrating and rationalising content from an existing site. Has experience and skills using Waterfall and Agile project methodologies and happy using a blended approach. Has experience of providing supporting technical and architectural documentation. Has experience of providing tools that support the export of content easily in a format such as XML, CSV or similar Has experience delivering digital services to at least a AA WCAG 2.0 web accessibility standard and an awareness of WCAG 2.1. Has experience optimising sites for continued improvement using Adobe/Google analytics. Holds or confirms commitment to obtain cyber essentials certification prior to starting work. Has experience of integrating to a service via an API, building relational databases, or tables within the CMS and local data stores. Has a good understanding of content optimised for conversion (CRO), SEO (on-page, architecture and technical) and engagement. Can provide examples of successful website integrations with APIs, other applications and databases/feeds. Has experience of building search pages that can use tools (e.g. faceted, sort, displays, filters, maps) for our collection online front-end search Experience of building content goals and funnels aligned to business KPIs. Nice to Haves Has experience of working with large public sector organisations (familiarity with cultures, governance structures and set-up). Has experience of building sites which have content or service hubs or sub categories that act as their own destinations. Has experience of building site wide searches such as ElasticSearch, Lucene, Solr. Has experience of building ecommerce websites, or those with advanced search databases (involving catalogues or merchandising). Has experience building local databases inside a CMS with integrations to third party systems and writing rules and fetch scripts to update records (unidirectional). Has experience integrating with Magento (for membership and donations), OLX for membership subscriptions, TOR for ticketing, and SharePoint for events. Has experience taking over projects that have been previously started, and where there are pre-determined recommendations, high level requirements gathered as part of an internal discovery process. Can meet the planned start date of October 2018. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 6 Proposal Criteria Further breakdown of criteria and scoring will be provided after shortlisting. Proven relevant web development and user centred design skills and experience from case studies and references. Demonstrate a transparent financial structure and fair pricing for the project. Demonstrate that the team has relevant individual qualification and skills and capacity to complete work. Demonstrate how the project will be kept on track, meet requirements and delivered to time and to budget. Demonstrate approach to balancing between waterfall and agile methodologies to deliver project. Demonstrate how risks and dependencies will be identified, and managed. Demonstrate outline of approach to testing, quality assurance and training and support. Demonstrate the proposed technical solution. Cultural Fit Criteria Demonstrate experience of working as a team with client organisations and other project stakeholders. Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions. Promote a no-blame culture and encourages people to learn from their mistakes. Accepts responsibility for work. Flexibility to work with the Museum’s. waterfall project and programme governance framework. Act as a ‘partner’ and an extension of the Museum's team. Looking out for us, on our side and working to get the best interest for the Museum. Adaptable and consultative in approach. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Case study Work history Reference Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 40% Cultural fit 20% Price 40% Questions from Suppliers Budget range suppliers progressing to the "future competition" (proposal) stage will be issued with a template to complete the financial section of this tender. the total supplier charge, along with the total blended day rate of all resources will be evaluated as per evaluation criteria.