Website Development Terms of Reference
Proposal
The Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC) is seeking proposals to provide website redesign (complete overhaul). The website must come with a new design and website content information architecture that supports easy navigation to key services, content management system (CMS), and updated content. The website acts as a marketing tool for the LNDC to highlight Lesotho as destination of choice for investment. The selected company will be responsible for providing services in accordance with the scope of services outlined in the proposal.
LNDC Profile
LNDC is a parastatal body charged with the implementation of the country’s industrial development policies.
“The mandate of the Corporation is to initiate, promote and facilitate the development of manufacturing and processing industries, mining and commerce in a manner calculated to raise the level of income and employment in Lesotho.”
The Corporation was established by Act No. 20 of 1967. The Act was amended through the LNDC Act No. 13 of 1990 and further amended by (Amendment) Act No. 7 of 2000.
The role of the Corporation is to promote Lesotho as an attractive investment location for both foreign and indigenous investors.
LNDC is wholly owned by the Government of Lesotho and falls under the Ministry of Trade and Industry which is responsible for providing overall policy direction on industrialization. The current LNDC website is located at www.lndc.org.ls.
Project Scope
The LNDC seeks a competent company to carry out design, development and commissioning of its corporate website. This will entail a complete re-design of the external website replacing the current http://www.lndc.org.ls website. The basic objective of this exercise shall be to have improved performance, manageability, look and feel, security and scalability of the website using platform independent software and programming. Scope of services for this project will require three phases, including tasks associated with each phase:
Phase 1: Design
Design Task 1.0: Analysis of Existing Site Content and New Requirements
Following the kick-off meeting, the Service Provider should gather end user perspectives about the existing site and develop a list of new site requirements to ensure the success of the redesign effort. It is anticipated that this will include a minimum of two focus groups with internal staff from LNDC departments, stakeholders, LNDC plan sponsors and/or the public.
LNDC is the investment promotion agency (IPA) of Lesotho, therefore aims to benchmark with the websites of the best investment promotion agencies (https://siteselection.com/issues/2019/may/top-investment-promotion-agencies-2019.cfm).The Service Provider should clearly show benchmarking and inclusion of common features of the best IPA website
In addition to the requirements identified by the focus groups, the Service Provider should identify any other website capabilities and functions that may be relevant to LNDC, including how they will help LNDC meet the goals of end user ease of use outlined in this RFP. As part of their proposals, Service Providers should indicate the appropriate number of focus groups required to successfully complete this task.
Design Task 2.0: Development of New Navigational Structure and Site Map
The Service Provider shall develop recommendations for a new navigational structure and site map, leveraging the requirements gathered in Task 1.0. LNDC staff will review and provide feedback to the Service Provider regarding the navigation and site map submitted until a final site map is agreed upon. As part of their proposals, Service Providers should indicate the appropriate number of meetings required to successfully complete this task.
Design Task 3.0 Proposed Method to Regulatory Requirements
The Service Provider should describe its understanding and a proposed process by which
LNDC’s redesigned website will comply with the standards set by W3C and WCAG 2.0 AA, or any other known security and compliance requirements.
Design Task 4.0: Design Development
At least three sets of home page and interior page design options will be provided by the Service Provider to LNDC and will include the agreed upon navigational structure and site map. Design options should be visually appealing and support a simple, intuitive and consistent end user experience. Preliminary requirements for the design options include common features found in most IPA websites.
LNDC staff will review and provide feedback to the Service Provider regarding the designs submitted. At least one meeting will take place between the Service Provider and LNDC regarding the design options. Internal and/or external focus groups may also be held to review the shortlisted designs before a final decision is made.
Design Task 5.0: Website Design Guidelines
Service Provider will provide guidelines that ensure design effectiveness and consistency moving forward from the go-live date. The guidelines should also foster self-reliance, i.e., non-designers should be able to successfully understand design decisions and compose new templates consistent with the rest of the site. The guidelines should include, but not be limited to:
• Site scalability (criteria for adding pages, major navigational additions as well as branching off to micro and/or full-scale distinct sites)
Phase 2: Implementation
The Implementation Phase consists of implementing the design recommendations developed during Phase A: Design Phase. The new website should be built in development and test environments prior to being migrated to a production environment. LNDC shall be provided access to all three environments.
The selected Service Provider shall provide hosting for the website that at a minimum meets the following requirements:
• Average server response times of less than 200ms.
• Guaranteed performances levels;
• No upload, download or bandwidth baps or throttling; and
• Backup, restore, and snapshot options.
The selected Service Provider shall develop a website that at a minimum meets the following requirements:
- The core Content Management System (CMS) being proposed must not be a proprietary system. Service Provider must specify the core CMS platform and any proprietary enhancements that are being proposed.
- Follows Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) framework
- Properly mitigates OWASP Top 10 most critical web development risks as identified here: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project
- Is fully https enabled
- Supports all current desktop and mobile browser versions.
- Meets data security and privacy requirements that exceed minimum legal and industry standards
- Uses the latest in technology and programming to prevent hacking and protect content
- Responsive design
Implementation Task 1.0: Content Management System
The Service Provider will implement a non-proprietary Content Management System (CMS) that is easy to use by non-technical staff and ensures style element consistency across the website. Content editors must be able to update, delete and create new pages based on predefined roles and templates, as well as insert the pages into the website’s navigation. In addition, content editors should be able to:
- Upload multiple document files and images at one time
- Insert and resize images in any page position
- Create photo galleries using an unlimited amount of photos
- Drag and drop configurable chat, event and calendar modules
- Create forms for use in collecting public comments, workshop registrations or other information
- Embed audio and/or video to web pages
- Spell check and add words to a dictionary
- Create redirects or user-friendly URLs for each page or document file
- Tag content with keywords to improve search and sorting functions
- Create content links to other relevant content on pages, in addition to inline links
- Undo/redo edits to web pages
- View/restore deleted work to web pages and view/restore deleted web pages to site
- See an accurate preview of a webpage before posting live
- Be able to make mass updates to links throughout the website
- To ensure the quality and integrity of the information being published on LNDC’s website, the CMS also should be able to:
- Provide easy to use content review procedures
- Ensure quality, integrity and efficiency moving text from MS Word to the CMS. Solution might include stripping formatting and converting HTML to conform to site style
- Provide for a link library to see all site links in a central place
- Provide link auditing functionality to check for broken links
- Provide an option to replace uploaded documents with new documents using the same URL so that the new file auto-uploads to all cross-linked areas
- Provide an option to upload images in a central location so the image can be added to any page of the website
- Store previous versions of web pages and restores/restores/reverts to previous versions, including saved drafts and published version
- Provide Captcha capability
- Hide email addresses to prevent automated systems from getting staff addresses
- Allow for auto-archiving of all pages and document files after a certain period of time based on (1) a predefined time after publishing; or (2) web manager selected start and end dates
- Allow users to print website pages in an easy-to-read
- The Service Provider should describe the delivery model on which their recommended CMS is based, and what advantage they see it bringing to LNDC, given its goals. Delivery models considered include only open-source software.
- Additionally, the Service Provider should describe the skills needed to implement and support the recommended CMS. The Service Provider should also describe what technical and non-technical LNDC staff training is required or recommended to support CMS implementation, how this training will be provided and what materials will be provided to LNDC staff to support continued training.
- Finally, the Service Provider should describe the process by which LNDC will be notified of and obtain upgrades to the recommended CMS.
Implementation Task 2.0: Search Engine Specifications
Service Provider will construct the website in a manner that supports best practices for search engine optimization with components and functionalities that include, but are not limited to:
- Simple-to-understand URLs
- Simple directory structure
- One version of a URL to reach a document or specific content
- Simple navigation
- Sitemap for site users (HTML)
- Sitemap for search engines (XML)
- Use of heading tags to present page structure to users (<h1> as most important down to <h6> as least important)
- Service Provider will develop a site search feature that includes, but is not limited to:
- Allowing users to search the new site by single words, combination of words or the exact phrase
- Allowing users to filter search results based on a date range or archive status
- Incorporating content descriptions in search results
- Featuring auto-correct and/or provided results that best match misspelled words or phrases
- Providing “Best Bet” results
- Searching both HTML pages and documents, such as PDF files and MS Word documents
- Returning results in order of relevance based on the frequency of the search words in the page content or metadata
- Returning results that can be browsed by category, i.e., a faceted search
- Allowing filtering of search results, such as documents, event calendar and news
Implementation Task 3.0: Evaluation and Migration of Existing Content
In partnership with the Service Provider, there will be an in-depth evaluation of existing website content. LNDC will work with the Service Provider to analyze where content can be simplified based on evaluations and results from Phase 1: Design.
Once content evaluation has been conducted and any changes determined, Service Provider will either upload revised content or migrate existing content to the new navigation structure and CMS.
Implementation Task 4.0: General Staff Training
It is our desire that LNDC staff be familiar with the navigation and functions of the redesigned website once completed. The Service Provider should be prepared to provide “training” sessions to LNDC staff for the new website, focusing on how to help all stakeholders find answers.
Phase 3: Post-Launch Evaluation and Support
Post-Launch Task 1.0: Ongoing Design Support
Following the go-live date, the Service Provider shall provide six months of website design support services to address design changes identified by LNDC. Services under this task shall include ongoing design work and additional recommendations regarding site structure.
Post-Launch Task 2.0: Ongoing Technical Support and Security
All proposals shall include costs for one year of annual support under a Service Level Agreement (SLA). The proposed SLA should provide in detail, tier levels and their offerings if applicable, support hours, response times and escalation triggers.
Services provided under the SLA shall include at a minimum, system maintenance and updates, Content Management System (CMS) support, maintenance and annual updates, security updates to all systems once a vulnerability has been identified, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) updates at least quarterly. In addition, we request either as part of the SLA or as a secondary agreement, access to vendor provided training and support in the creation of additional modules or enhancements to existing modules and pages.