Outcome for a digital team to assess how well our website is working for its intended audience

Tender description

Summary of the work The OEP require a digital team with good user research, user experience design, content design and usability testing experience to assess how the OEP website is meeting the needs of its users and to provide design led recommendations for improvement. Expected Contract Length 8-10 weeks Latest start date Wednesday 15 February 2023 Budget Range It is estimated this work can be delivered in the budget range of £40,000-£60,000. Why the Work is Being Done The Office for Environmental Protection (The OEP) is a new public body. We protect and improve the environment by holding government and other public authorities to account. We enable people to make complaints about public authorities who may have broken environmental law. The website was designed before the OEP came into existence and after several months of operation, the time is right to assess how well the website works for its intended audience and purpose and to determine the organisation’s future vision for the website. Problem to Be Solved We want to know how well the current website performs in supporting users and their needs and our organisational vision and objectives. We have a set of user personas and their user needs (from a year ago, just as we came into being) that are focused on the OEP's role in receiving environmental law complaints, and we want to assess whether they are still relevant, or if new needs or personas have emerged, relating to our role in holding Government to account for its progress towards environmental targets. We want to research how the OEP can both support the needs of users by making transparent government's performance and progress towards its environmental targets and grow our organisational influence. We want a user researched evidence base of how we could improve the website, with design and content collateral that can be used to improve the current website (website built using Drupal. We have no plans to move away from this). We want to use this work to engage and consult with the OEP Executive and non-Executive Board to define an updated vision and purpose for the website. Who Are the Users We have seven existing user personas developed as we were formed as an organisation in the Autumn of 2021. They range from committed environmentalists to environmental complaints specialists. Those personas have a wide range of user needs, with over 20 user needs identified. In summary, many relate to needing to know what can be done about an environmental concern/complaint and understanding what the OEP can and can't do in relation to a potential complaint and what is required from a complainant. Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done In the Autumn of 2021 we worked with an agency to develop user personas and their user needs. This involved user research with 15 users and usability testing of the 'Complain to the OEP' service. All materials relating to this will be made available to the successful agency. Existing Team The OEP has a IT & Digital team, comprising of a Head of and a Senior IT Officer and a Communications team comprising of a Head of Comms and Senior Comms Officer. Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Extensive experience of face to face and remote user research and usability testing using proven methodologies. 4% • Proven track record of recruiting user research subjects that match user personas. 4% • Extensive experience of developing user needs and user personas and communicating them in an engaging and impactful way. 4% • Extensive experience of working with executives and board members to develop and/or validate a vision and purpose for digital channels. 4% • Experience of rapid prototyping to design and test ways to improve responsive websites. 4% • Expertise in digital services which meet GOV.UK guidelines for content design, service design and accessibility. 4% Nice to Haves • Experience of designing solutions for organisations regulating a sector, or operating in a tightly regulated sector. 3% • Demonstrating experience of helping organisations in a start-up mode develop a coherent website strategy, that balances the needs of the organisation, stakeholders and end users. 3% Work Location Worcestershire County Hall, Spetchley Road, Worcester, WR5 2NP Working Arrangments We are a Worcester based organisation that is operating a hybrid home/office way of working. We are a Microsoft O365/Teams organisation, so the ability to use this for collaboration is essential. We envisage key planning activity to take place face to face with the remainder online. Please note: we expect 50% of user research sessions to be face to face. Security Clearance All must have BPSS as a minimum. Additional T&Cs https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-5-legal-documents No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • How the approach will ensure we can identify and articulate actionable improvements to the website, looking at short, medium and long-term improvements 11% • How the approach will enable the OEP to develop and validate a vision and purpose for their website that supports both organisational needs and citizen needs. 11% • How will the proposed approach enable us to better understand our users and integrate their needs into our day to day work.4% • Team structure, roles and proposed way of working.4% Cultural Fit Criteria • Work collaboratively with our stakeholders. 3% • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions. 3% • Be evidence and data-informed decision making. 3% • Work effectively as a self-organising team. 3% • Be proactive problem-solving. 3% • Bring diversity of thought to their work. 3% • Act fairly, communicate honestly and openly. 2% Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Can you please confirm there will be no presentation stage for this procurement? We can confirm there won't be a presentation stage. 2. Could you please clarify your expectations re: ‘design and content collateral that can be used to improve the current website’? We would be interested to know what kind of outputs you are anticipating (e.g., high/low res wireframes, components, etc.)? We imagine low fi wireframes to show changes to pages and new pages. Where components/page elements are specified that don't exist on the website, then these would be higher fidelity so a front-end developer can code based on how it would look on the webpage. Where new content is proposed, we ask that your proposal includes content design resource to develop production ready content. 3. Could you share who delivered discovery and alpha for the website? Is there an incumbent who created user personas when the organisation was set up? The discovery and alpha was led by a Defra digital team working with the website supplier, Civic UK. Subsequently, we worked with Hippo Digital on the user personas and user needs. 4. Does the budget include or exclude VAT? Budget includes VAT. 5. For the Face-to-Face research sessions (50% must be done in person), can these be done in London? Yes, any UK location is ok.