Skamania County Issues Website RFP

The Skamania County Website Advisory Group (SCWAG) developed the following goals for the website replacement project:

• Meet the users’ needs: Assist the county in identifying and prioritizing users’ needs. Improve the County’s online presence to provide more efficient, faster access to a user’s desired Information.
• Add more visual interest: Create an online presence that truly engages users. Present Skamania County accurately: make sure the website and other online media are consistent and would represent Skamania County clearly.
• Engage the energy and creativity of staff: Make sure the website is intuitive and accessible for those who upload content. Keep the scope realistic: Improvements need to be achievable within budget and staff resources.
• Plan for the long term: Develop a strategy for how Skamania County’s online presence will continue to be improved over the coming years.

Background:

Skamania County completed a major update of its website approximately eight years ago. At that time, the Skamania County evaluated the needs of website users and contributors and selected the content management system (CMS), now serviced by the WebRock.

The current CMS supports multiple contributors so that each department has the ability to maintain and update information on the website. Website contributors are administrative staff and professional staff. While Skamania County’s website continues to serve many needs, it can be improved through an updated layout, better navigation, a more intuitive CMS, additional audience engagement features and further interface with current and emerging communication technologies.

Skamania County is currently looking to have a webpage that allows a person, not familiar with government departments, names, and verbiage to be able to navigate and find the services and information they are looking for. Skamania County desires that its new web presence not only engage with and satisfy the information needs of the local community, but that it also accurately reflects the ideals and mission of our county and its elected officials.

To achieve this brand awareness (ideals and mission) through its new website, the Skamania County believes both a one-way and two-way dialogue are critical website platforms to engage with the various audiences; the overall take -away from viewing the site should be one of an innovative, next-generation web presence organization that has the skills and resources to successfully accomplish large-scale development projects, as well as being an approachable information source to its local constituency

Scope of Work:

Project Management

The selected vendor will:

• Develop an overall project plan including a plan for the architecture design phase of website replacement; CMS implementation plan, training plan, schedule, and plan for future maintenance and upgrades.
• Work with county staff to become familiar with types of business received, content uploaders and unique needs of each department.
• Develop and implement a mechanism for notifying Skamania County of maintenance requirements and available upgrades.

Design

The selected vendor will:

• Provide a project plan for the architecture design phase of the website replacement project.
• Redesign the county website look and feel in concert with the county’ s mission and goals in mind. Meeting the expectations for a professional and innovative website.
• Make recommendations for content organization and key pages.
• Work with IT staff and SCWAG to determine a new website content information architecture navigation framework to support easy navigation to key county services.
• Working with SCWAG, to determine a consistent look and feel for the website, including color schemes, graphic elements, fonts, and navigation tools.
• Provide a minimum of three (3) designs of the proposed website, including mockups of up to 10 key pages.

CMS

The selected vendor will:

• Provide a comprehensive, easy-to-use CMS solution.
• Provide a fully operational and working website framework (“information ready”). Create a website template s that meet ADA standards compliance.
• Provide a search engine solution that will support indexing of all contents within the CMS as well as external county website resources.

CMS Implementation

The selected vendor will:

• Work with SCWAG to implement the new CMS including migration of information from the current website.
• The website shall integrate all existing e-government applications and shall be designed for easy integration of additional e-government applications.
• Install and configure website CMS software on county server infrastructure.

Training

The selected vendor will:

• Develop a training plan.
• Provide complete training on the use of the CMS for current content uploaders.
• Provide (with prior arrangement) follow up training.
• Provide an ongoing support agreement.

Due Date:

October 25th

Address:

P.O. Box 790, Stevenson, WA 98648

Attn: Skamania County Website Advisory Group

Shift Communications and W20 Group have relevant experience.