- From: Coralie Mercier <coralie@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 09:13:34 +0100
- To: public-website-redesign@w3.org
Attention: interested parties,
I have compiled a list of the most frequent questions I have received since November 8, regarding the W3C Website redesign request for proposals.
Some were asked publicly and the answers are already recorded in the public mail archive [1], others were asked privately.
Please find the 32 questions and answers at the end of our RFP:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ
https://www.w3.org/2019/11/website-redesign-rfp.html#faq
With kind regards,
Coralie Mercier, Head of W3C Marketing & Communications
[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-website-redesign/2019Nov/
Text version of the FAQ:
=======================
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. Can firms outside of the W3C Hosts countries apply?
Yes.
2. Is there any fixed budget?
The average cost estimate of $200,000 is based on
figures given by people who are in the ecosystem. We
would like vendors to propose what they recommend even
if it exceeds $200,000.
From the RFP, please note the paragraph “We have an
ambitious schedule. In responding to this RFP, bidders
are asked to balance the target schedule, completeness,
and quality - and identify trade offs where the tight
schedule could impact completeness or quality.”
3. Why isn't the W3C team redesigning its website?
We do not have the skills or mandate. The W3C team helps
coordinate W3C work groups in creating specifications
for the Open Web Platform that progress on the W3C
Recommendation track, or manages the execution of the
W3C Process Document and operations of the Consortium.
4. Can you describe the current CMS?
Our current website relies on a solution developed
in-house in 2008 that aggregates HTML fragments coming
from different sources (Wordpress, Symfony, manually
maintained files, in-house tools, etc.).
5. Do you have any preference in terms of CMS?
The CMS does not need to be custom.
We are open to tools and platforms suggested by vendors,
but would need to understand those we would need to
adapt to our needs.
It would be nice if the CMS provided a way to integrate
data from various sources without requiring us to
customize said sources.
We do have a strong preference for Open Source
technologies that are standard based.
Unlimited data versioning would be ideal.
6. How well structured are the content models in your existing
CMS, or does this just require a complete review as part
of this project?
A large amount of our content is not well structured and
we believe it would need a complete review.
7. What are the W3C-maintained backend services? How many are
there? What do they do?
We have plenty but they are all interconnected. Those
have been developed internally and are also maintained
internally by our Systems Team. They are almost all
(re)written in PHP using the Symfony platform.
The main backend services relate to:
+ User and account management (authentication and
rights)
+ W3C Membership (Membership application, organization
details, contracts, basic financial reports)
+ Work groups (join/leave a group, display group info
and participants)
+ W3C Specifications
+ Management of W3C news items (using WordPress)
8. Is the aim to merge all different language sites into one
style?
Perhaps. We are open to suggestions from the vendor.
9. How many content administrators are there expected to be
within your organization after the site launch?
The W3C staff amounts to 50 or so people and today
everyone more or less has write access, but not everyone
contributes equally. We are aiming to limit this to e.g.
Marketing & Communications team, Business Development
team, Systems team.
10. How is the W3C website hosted?
We host the website ourselves. However, we intend to
move our infrastructure to the cloud.
11. What is the expertise of the W3C Systems team?
Our Systems team has a strong expertise on PHP
(WordPress CMS and Symfony framework) and APIs for our
backend systems and some expertise on Javascript and
NodeJS.
12. How is the legacy website being preserved?
The current W3C website static content is under version
control (CVS) and is also under backup.
We anticipate that this soon to be legacy site will need
to coexist (in a more or less frozen version) with the
new site and that the W3C Systems team will handle the
implementation of this coexistence.
13. Are there existing Branding guidelines?
There is a draft W3C style guide.
It aims to be a comprehensive place that compiles, and
keeps all of the essential aspects that pertain to the
W3C style. Its sources include documents and guidelines
there were written by Tim Berners-Lee at the start of
the Consortium 25 years ago, graphical elements of the
W3C brand, our manual of written style for
specifications, best practices for CSS, HTML, etc. It
also currently includes a number of additions that are
opinions and preferences of its author (Bert Bos,
co-inventor of CSS and W3C Staff member).
Note: That document has gotten limited internal review
due to its “draft” nature and due to limited bandwidth
and the lack of a great opportunity for wider internal
review.
Vendors should be allowed to propose changes, and/or
should feel free to use this as a basis to build a
design system.
14. Are you open to a combination of in-person and remote
usability testing to account for your geographically
diverse users?
Yes, to the extent that we do not have a preferred
methodology.
15. Do you anticipate needing full recruitment for usability
study participants?
We may have a few recommendations, but we indeed
anticipate needing full recruitment.
16. Is it appropriate to include automated and manual
evaluation in our proposal?
Please, include in the proposal your process for
validating and evaluating accessibility.
Yes, it is appropriate to include automated and manual
evaluation in your proposal; it’s important to know how
you handle QA accessibility.
17. What development workflow and version control, if any, are
you expecting such as Git hosting; Development or
staging instances?
We use both GitHub for our public work and a private
GitLab for our internal development. We are used to peer
review, continuous integration and continuous
deployment.
18. What level of site administration do you anticipate your
team will be responsible for after the site is completed
(versus none or only content administration and
updating)?
We are prepared to handle site administration and are
aware that this may depend on the solution we adopt. We
are also interested in creating a long-lasting
partnership with the vendor to continue to work with us
as our needs and organization evolve (as part of our
Objectives in the RFP), and this may include some
administration.
19. Is there a desired or already in use CRM platform that will
integrate with the new site for member engagement and
donor outreach?
There is one already (BigContacts) that we are not happy
with as it proved difficult to use and has not been
integrated with our internal users and members database.
Our Business Development Team has an interest in moving
to the Salesforce CRM, we recently opened discussion
with Salesforce to see how this transition could happen
and how to better integrate with our internal systems.
20. Is the content inventory complete, or will this be a part
of the scope of work?
We have a good grasp on content inventory, but it may
still be part of the scope of work, as it may be related
to the information architecture work. For example, we
may have some ideas regarding migration that a vendor
may make us revisit as part of their migration strategy
advice, or we may have ideas of elements for future
phases that the vendor may advise we re-prioritize. I
expect that our Systems team may be involved for that
aspect as well.
21. How many content languages are we expected to migrate?
Currently, our content is in English mostly.
22. Regarding localization, any particular requirements? How
consistent is your localization today or envisioned?
Currently, our content is in English mostly. Our Press
releases are consistently translated (a handful every
year), some of our recommendations are translated by a
community of volunteers. Ideally, we’d like our website
to be translated in all languages but we do not have the
manpower to translate over time. At least 4 to 6
languages (English, Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish,
German for example) would be great to start with;
content to be supplied by us.
23. What third party apps need to be connected to the website
and how does W3C want that to function?
Today we do not rely on any third party app (all our
integrations are developed and maintained internally by
the W3C Systems team). We do integrate some data coming
from external JSON API such as the GitHub API.
24. Will W3C be setting up the server for environment and
related file storage repository? Or should that be
included in the proposal?
We will be setting this up but any aspects which may
require training should be included in the proposal.
25. Regarding MFA WebAuth, how many users will need to be
considered for this functionality? At a high-level how
many different permission based groups would need to be
set-up?
There are 12,000 to 15,000 W3C user accounts.
The different access-levels are: public, Member, group,
team, and possibly custom.
26. What are your primary drivers of sale currently? Are you
looking to involve the site more in that?
The site is not a driver of sales.
We are a non-profit and intend to remain so, and our
income is principally W3C Membership dues and then
grants and other funding sources such as participation
in European Commission projects.
To drive W3C Membership applications, our website is one
entry point (in addition to the “sign up for Membership”
forms) and then we have a small Business Development
team that concludes sales.
So our website needs to be appealing to prospect Members
(both visually and at the information architecture
level) as well as other of the audiences we list in the
RFP.
We are indeed looking to involve the site more in
driving crowdfunding. The existing “donate” page and
experience isn’t very successful.
27. How much of the work needs to be published in the open? In
what form?
Enough that significant milestones are understandable.
Working in the open does not have to be a barrier or add
too much overhead.
28. Who can give feedback?
Our stakeholders and interested parties. For example,
the core W3C Staff is a group of 50 to 60 people; our
Members is a group of 400+ organizations; our work group
participants is a group of 10-12K people. And then, we
may get feedback from people we do not interact with in
the same fashion we do with the previous groups, but are
part of our audience (and a subset of our site is for
the public).
29. Who is allowed to give feedback when “working in the open”?
We don’t mind explaining our choices and clarifying
them, but designing by committee is slow, tedious, and
does not provide good results in our experience.
I concur! I propose there is one single person who is
the interface between W3C and the vendor.
30. Other than Coralie, who are the other key stakeholders, who
are responsible for the decision making process on this
project?
[39]Coralie as head of W3C Marketing & Communications is
project manager and owner of the website. She may
consult as appropriate with the oversight team which
includes [40]Vivien Lacourba (W3C Systems team Lead),
[41]Jeff Jaffe (W3C CEO), [42]Ralph Swick (W3C COO, and
W3C Architecture and Technology Lead), [43]Alan Bird
(W3C Business Development Lead); and possibly with other
groups in close circles (other members of the W3C team,
W3C Advisory Board.)
We will, however, limit to one or two the number of
people who act as interface between W3C and the vendor.
[39] https://www.w3.org/People#coralie
[40] https://www.w3.org/People#vivien
[41] https://www.w3.org/People#jeff
[42] https://www.w3.org/People#rswick
[43] https://www.w3.org/People#abird
31. When are the sign-off moments?
This is to be determined. The vendor is expected to
propose a timeline that would work with their
methodology and proposed plan. There probably are
“organic” sign-off moments.
32. Are there going to be interviews before awarding the
project? Can you elaborate on the selection process a
bit more?
We may wish to schedule meeting time with bidders
individually before awarding the project.
The oversight team will look at costs, review
portfolios, compare how the proposals are presented, and
how close they are to what the RFP identifies. I may
consult with selected Members of the W3C Advisory Board
who volunteered time and expertise for this.
--
Coralie Mercier - W3C Marketing & Communications - https://www.w3.org
mailto:coralie@w3.org +337 810 795 22 https://www.w3.org/People/Coralie/
Received on Friday, 29 November 2019 08:13:39 UTC