Accessibility audit

Tender description

Summary of the work The ICO is looking for a supplier to undertaken an accessibility audit of website. We need to test a cross section of different content, functionality and journeys on the website. The testing must not be solely automated and must include (but is not limited to) testing with assistive technology. Latest start date Monday 6 September 2021 Budget Range £3,000 - £5,000 Why the Work is Being Done The ICO are aiming to meet all A, AA, and AAA WCAG 2.1 standards and exceed them where best practice recommendations are made. The website was recently audited by the Cabinet Office and this has prompted us to engage an external auditor to look at how we can improve our accessibility standards beyond what we have already done. We would want work to commence ahead of our report back to the cabinet office so we would want a kick off meeting week beginning 6 September and the audit would have to have started no later than week beginning 13 September. Problem to Be Solved Users of the ICO's website who have accessibility requirements may be struggling to access content or navigate the site and services. We need to ensure all users have equal access to website content and a positive user experience when doing so. Existing problems may not be being flagged by the ICO's automated testing platform or by the recent Cabinet Office audit. We need to engage an experienced website auditor to review a range of content to check for any issues and make best practice recommendations. The team need to be provided with details of the standard failures, with potential fixes and clear information about the category of failure and potential impact on users. Who Are the Users As a user of the ICO's website with an accessibility requirement , I need to be able to access all content and services with the same ease and clarity as a user without an accessibility issue, so that I can access the information I need or undertake the action I want. Existing Team Senior Communications Officer (Digital) - website front end manager Digital Architect - website backend manager External development team Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Using a range of testing methods (not solely automated testing) • Be able to test both with and without assistive technology • Be able to test with all the assistive technology and browser combinations listed in the GOV.UK service standards • Be able to provide detailed explanations of any failures, including specific area of WCAG 2.1 and the level. • Be able to lay out potential solutions that could be implemented to rectify any failures or action best practice, in plain English • Be able to level of detail that allows the ICO to easily prioritise actions • have experience of conducting audits for organisations who are subject to The Public Sector Bodies (Website and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessiblity Regulations 2018. Work Location Remote working Working Arrangments NA No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 10 Proposal Criteria • Approach and methodology • Estimated timeframes • Outputs • Previous experience Cultural Fit Criteria • Be willing to meet the team ahead of audit taking place • Be able to provide enough information, after the audit that the ICO can action the recommendations without further support from the supplier Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method • Case study • Work history Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can resources work from outside UK (Offshore)? Where the supplier is physically located when completing the work doesn't have a baring as the website is live and accessible.However, we are looking for a UK based organisation. If located outside UK when conducting the work the supplier would need to be able to attend a Teams meeting with the ICO team. 2. Can you please clarify this question to respond to?Be able to level of detail that allows the ICO to easily prioritise actions The ICO needs to be provided with details, about the issues or recommendations made by the supplier that will help us quickly and easily make decisions about how to prioritise actioning the issues/recommendations.This could include (but isn't limited to) WCAG categories, complexity of the work involved to fix the issue, number of occurrences of the issue, impact on user. 3. Do you have an incumbent supplier for accessibility services? If so, who? We do not have an incumbent supplier. 4. When you say that 10 suppliers will be evaluated, do you mean that 10 suppliers will be shortlisted and asked to provide a detailed proposal? Given the time it takes, that is a very unattractive proposition for a supplier, so we would decline to quote, as would most top-tier consultancies. You would be left with just the inexperienced and desperate ones, of which there are many. All applications will be evaluated against the proposal criteria, cultural fit and price. If more than 10 supplier bid then the top ten will be shortlisted and evaluated based on the additional assessment methods. 5. Is this engagement just for a single round of testing? Or does it include one or more rounds of retesting until full WCAG conformance is achieved? One round of testing 6. Have you done an analysis to determine if any of the 2000+ PDFs and office documents are exempt under the PSBAR? A number of PDFs are exempt as they were published before Sept 2018. 7. Where did the £3k to £5k budget figure come from? It is not likely to be sufficient for a website containing more than 2200 pages, 2200 PDFs and 170 other office documents The £3-5k figure was from GDS advice. As stated in the requirements - we only require a cross section of content to be audited not all content 8. Why have you included assistive technology and browser testing in the scope? There is no requirement to use assistive technologies in a WCAG audit and it is not required under the PSBAR. Since the ICO is not a central government department, the GOV.UK Service Standard does not require assistive technology testing either. The cost would be substantially reduced if it is descoped. This was based on GDS advice. Although not a central Government Department the ICO aims to meet the same standards. 9. You say you are “aiming to meet all A, AA, and AAA WCAG 2.1 standards”. Does that mean you want the website tested for AAA? Obviously this adds a great deal to the cost, and the Cabinet Office only require AA. We are aiming to meet all A,AA and AAA standards so would require a cross section of the site to be tested against AAA criteria. 10. Have you identified a representative subset of pages to be tested? If so, how many pages are there? We have identified a number of page types that require testing but not the specific pages. 11. Do you have any content on third-party websites that would be in scope? Not for this audit. 12. There are a number of pages on the https://newsletter.ico.org.uk and https://icosearch.ico.org.uk subdomains. Are these in scope? Are any other subdomains in scope? newsletter.ico.org.uk is not in scopeicosearch.ico.org.uk is in scope,No other subdomains are in scope at this time 13. Can you confirm if the whole of https://ico.org.uk/ is to be tested? We are only looking to test a cross section of the content on the site.