County of Inyo Issues Website Redesign RFP

Purpose:

The County of Inyo is soliciting proposals from firms with demonstrated website development  and design experience to develop, design and deliver a new website for the County that is easy to update, has a consistent look and feel, a contemporary design, intuitive navigation, and meets the needs of the County as detailed below.

Background:

The County of Inyo is a governmental organization Inyo County, California was organized in 1866 from land set aside from Mono and Tulare Counties. The County was originally named Coso County, and the town of Independence is designated as the County seat. The County is characterized as rural and frontier, and is located in the central-eastern part of the state. Comprised of more than 10,142 square miles, Inyo County is geographically the second largest county in California. The governmental agency was organized, in part, to provide safety and services to its population.

According to census information, the population of Inyo County in 2013 was estimated to be 18,467 and showed an increase of 2.9% over the 2000 census. The census also reports a median household income of $45,000 or 27% below that of the California median, and a median value of owner-occupied homes of $246,200 or 36% below that of the California median. Census data indicates 7,910 Inyo County households in 2012.

Scope of Work:

The project deliverables must include the following :

• A functioning website and content management system (CMS), including the following specific webpages with current content:

o County Website Homepage

o 28 departmental home pages

o 40 informational web pages subordinate to departmental home pages

o Integrated CMS that authenticates to Active Directory, allows access to website pages and subpages based on AD group membership, and allows the creation of new webpages using webpage templates

o 5 webpage templates that integrate with the CMS and allow a department to create a new departmental home page and subordinate pages based on templates

o Functioning aggregated news feed

• Documentation, including digital training materials, to describe:

o The structure and technical features of the website

o How to create, update and delete webpages in the CMS

o How to change background and inline photos

o How to create newsfeed and event items

o How to tag newsfeed and event items for inclusion in the County’s newsfeed and list of events

o Any unique features of the website

• Training that covers the required documentation should be available for up to 30 people and must be completed at least 2 weeks prior to the official launch of the new website. The website training plan will be developed in collaboration with the County.

Technical requirements:

• The website taxonomy must be developed in collaboration with Information Services and other County departments.
• The function and design ofthe page templates must be developed in collaboration with Information Services and other County Departments.
• The integrated CMS should authenticate to Active Directory using group membership, allow access to website pages and subpages based on AD group membership, and allow the creation of new webpages using webpage templates.
• The CMS should allow editing in a form closely resembling its appearance when displayed (WYSIWYG) and should allow changes to content and images, but should not allow changes to page format .
• The website should be integrated with a database and should be database driven.
• The website colors and general layout should be controlled by a “skin” that can be changed by creating and toggling a different skin in the CMS.
• The website will be associated with the lnyoCounty.us domain, and must function regardless of the use of capital letters in the URL.
• Links to www.lnyoCounty.us and lnyoCounty.us must return the same website content.
• The website should be easily portable and easily migrated to a different hosting platform or service.
• The code must be readable, well documented, and extensible using currently available software development tools.

Functional Requirements:

• The new website has a consistent look and feel across all web pages.
• The new website is visually appealing based on pre- and post-project survey results. Survey questions will be developed in collaboration with the County.
• The new website includes an integrated CMS that allows departments to easily manage and update the content on their pages.
• The new website CMS allows page owners to easily change the inline and background pictures on their pages.
• Pages support cycling through a set of background images.
• Pages support cycling through a set of inline images.
• The new website is easier to navigate based on usability testing based on pre- and post-project survey results. Survey questions will be developed in collaboration with the County.
• The new website can support automated news and event aggregation from other pages on the County website, online forms and interactive applications, workflow automation, and scheduled information posting and removal.
• The new website is device responsive.
• The new website complies with ADA Section 508.
• The website should function the same regardless of the browser used, including current versions of Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox.
• The new website will be fully owned by the County of Inyo and cannot be proprietary to the respondent, the respondent’s subcontractors, or third party entities. The County or its contractors must be able to modify the product without needing to obtain permission or pay fees to another organization.

Due Date:

April 27th

Address:

Scott Armstrong, Information Services Director

County of Inyo

P.O. Box 477

Independence, CA. 93526

California PR agencies include Finn Partners and Ruder Finn.