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Nicole -> Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 4:59:37)

. . . Have any of you ever been asked to quote on a Government Department's website redesign?

I have, as of this afternoon [:)]

I'm looking at it in depth now, it's a department that's broken into regions, and the Public Relations Officer called me this afternoon, we talked a while and I'd really like to get the quote in by the weekend, if not sooner.

The site is currently a table layout and has a zillion PDF and MS word downloads, all without informing the user that they're PDF's and DOC's and obviously not how big they are. It's a large task looking at this site with dial-up.

But as there are guidelines in Australia for government sites regarding web standards and accessibility, I'm wondering how heavy to play that card?

Ultimately I expect that the bottom line will be the cost, but I really have an opportunity here to play the accessibility and web standards card, and I don't want to play it too vigourously or too mildly.

Have any of you any experience with small government departments, if so, how did you play up accessibility and web standards?

p.s. I don't need to mention the political, media and general community attention this site gets do I?



Tailslide -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 6:18:14)

Details here about the Aus rules - http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/m-281309/tm.htm

All I can say is - firstly, congratulations on being asked to tender.

Secondly - DON'T RUSH THE QUOTE!!! Really look at what's involved. For instance, all those PDFs - are they accessible PDFs (were they created using tagged format?) if not, you want to be very careful about claiming 100% accessibility for the site as it might come back to bite you.

Thirdly - don't undersell yourself - you can guarantee that this will be more work than you think it will be now!

Fourthly - if you get it, make sure you have a single point of contact. You don't want to be listening to conflicting views. Tell them to elect the contact and that you'll be talking to them - not to a committee.

How is the site to be updated - Govt. depts usually want to be able to do that themselves?

Given that it's a Govt. dept I think that you can definitely play the accessibility card - don't smack 'em over the head with it, just state it as a matter of fact - "of course you'll need your site to be fully accessible in line with (quote legislation) won't you?" and watch their blank faces.

Good luck!



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 6:31:11)

Thanks for the link Tail, yes. I wrote that! [:D]

I most certainly won't rush the quote, It's a real pain going through their site right now because of only being on dial-up and all the pdf's etc. From what I can see, there's no need to have these pages as pdf's, laziness perhaps, but it's all, or mostly information that should just naturally be on the site.

Being the local area subsidiary of a state government department, not the department itself, I'm not sure how bound they are to asking for several quotes etc, but she did say she found my site through Google even though my partner did promote me to one of their employees a few weeks/months ago.

I won't undersell myself because it really looks big when you look into it. She told me on the phone that it currently has 10 pages including the home page, i guess she forgot to mention that there's at least 100 PDF's and maybe 30 or 40 word docs that are just linked hapharardly to the site for no reason.

I don't like the thought of spending 3 or more days writing a detailed quote including accessibility statements for a 10 page site, but maybe I can convince them?

That's why I asked the SnippetMaster question in the lounge, they want to update it, and so far I've had no success with 2 hosts who don't like including Zend or Ioncube on their server.



Tailslide -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 7:15:19)

Might be 10 pages now - but there'll be more than 10 pages by the time you've finished even if you don't change the PDFs and Word Docs. You'll want a sitemap, an accessibility statement etc etc.

Ideally I'd say the best way to build that site would be to use a database. Have the content of all those PDFs and Word documents in the database maybe with links to the PDFs/DOCS if they want.

To ensure accessibility (assuming that you'll be stressing that) then the PDFs will need to be written as tagged PDFs which might mean doing them all again if they weren't done properly.

This is the sort of job that can be as cheaply done or as expensively done as you like. Snippetmaster will probably do it (I can't say I'm a huge fan of it) and you could at least make the template itself accessible. But Snippetmaster can play up if you're not careful about where you place the tags plus it displays an odd selection of formatting in the WYSIWYG window thing (shows some inherited styles not others) and then there's all those PDFs....



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 7:25:13)

Okay so you've seen the site Tail,

Don't scare me out of this one, but most of the PDF's and word docs (and the word docs I'm sure were just uploaded by someone lazy or while the pdf girl was on holidays) are really necessary parts of the site aren't they? I think they are.

I don't really see a need for anything to be in pdf format apart from perhaps just a couple of those pages?



Tailslide -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 7:54:28)

I think the reports as PDFs are reasonable - just about. The rest is ridiculous!



jaybee -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 8:18:53)

Agree with Helena on all of this.

Snippetmaster really isn't sufficient for what you're looking at here. Sure it lets you update content but what happens when they want to add new pages or change menu items? I wouldn't be using Joomla or WordPress for this either. I think I'd probably be hurriedly going the Macromedia Contribute.

You can download a trial. If you go with it you and they have to buy a license for every desktop copy so you need to build that cost into the quote unless they already have it in their offices.

Don't short change yourself on time and don't underquote. This is a high profile project and if others are quoting you can guarantee they won't be going in at a few hundred dollars.



d a v e -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 9:42:06)

nicole do you live anywhere near a library other place/person with broadband??



rubyaim -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 16:58:23)

Hi Nicole, when you are doing your quote, you may like to take into the 'frustration factor' of dealing with a Gov Dept.

I don't know what site it is but all those PDF's and Word docs sound awful. Having those as web content (with a print style sheet) may be a selling factor. Some people are really chuffed with being able to print from a web page [:)]



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/16/2007 18:22:31)

Thanks for the responses everybody.

Dave I don't really live anywhere near anything, and although I'm a bit loathe to keep making "excuses", but I am also caretaking a property where my tenure expires in two weeks, security has been hightened here in the last fortnight and has thus caused me to concentrate way more on that, writing reports, recording everything I see and many, many phone calls to various people in Sydney and also the Police. I've only just been able in the last couple of days to focus once again on a client's website that is now way overdue, and starting Tuesday I'm going to be traveling 4 hours everyday to my new home taking things down there etc, so I really have to spend time on this quote until I have it right, before the beginning of next week anyway.

As an aside, this is exactly what happened when I left Albury, within the last two weeks I started getting web design enquiries and unfortunately I was just too occupied with other things to devote the time needed to make appointments to see them and give them a decent amount of my time. I’ve learnt a lot in the past few months about how easy it’s supposed to be to take a web design business with you no matter where you move to. Three to four months is about how long it seems to take to begin getting enquiries whether you’ve done any promotion or it’s just been through Google. Broadband is an issue even though I thought I could do without it, and any future caretaking jobs I take on, (it is good money and such, but this is why I need to sub-contract to other designers rather than picking up my own clients), and there is another possibility of a caretaking job in July, I’ll be insisting on as much notice as possible so I can ensure that both moves, to and from will be quick and smooth and I can find out about Broadband availability.

I live nowhere near a library and nowhere near any clothes shops to buy anything half decent to go and see clients.

Anyway, that may explain a lot but not necessarily in the context of this thread.

Sally, the use of a print style sheet is exactly what I have in mind, with the contents of those PDF’s converted to html with options to print directly from the page, and with PDF and doc download links also. I’ve done this on another site without any dramas, and I am an Official Adobe “reseller” is that the term they use? I’ll have to look it up, but in other words I have their permission to use their download link on sites I create. I think to any novice this might sound impressive.

Tail, I learnt the “one point of contact” thing a long time ago when an NGO whose site I created started bombarding me from all directions with updates that both weren’t being approved by their boss and were at times in conflict with what another person was asking me to do.

When I write the quote and give any ideas on why things should be done as I suggest, I’ll probably have to use the accessibility card often, I will check how these PDF’s were created though, and at the end of the quote I’ll mention something about the Disability Discrimination Act. I almost threw out a printout of the Government’s “minimum standards document” I printed a few years ago just the other day. Luckily, although outdated it probably gives me a good starting point to find the legislations I’ll need.

I stress that I know I can’t rely on my hunch, but I do feel for several reasons that I’ve been contacted solely because of my partner’s promotion of my business to a guy from this department that he had dealings with a few months ago. I also know that Government Departments must get at least 3 quotes before giving a contract to anybody, but I really felt I was either the first or only person she’d called because she wasn’t very sure at all when asking some of my questions that would be common questions that a web designer would ask.

Nicole



womble -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/17/2007 4:41:23)

Congrats Nicole.

I'd echo everything everyone else has said. On accessibility, as Tail said, be wary of claiming 100% accessibility, but the accessibility aspect is very important for government/local government. A while back I was invited for coffee with the IT dept's head IT honcho at work after he learnt of my interests in accessibility and standards. To cut a long story short, I discovered that as well as the general requirements for accessibility (the Disability Discrimination Act here in the UK), loving beaurocrasy and red tape as they do, as in many areas of local govt, there are various targets and monitoring that have to be done for central govt, including one on web accessibility. If the Aus govt are anything near as beaurocratic as ours are, I'd imagine they'd have something similar, so if you've any way of finding out if they have any internal targets/monitoring requirements (obviously without jeapodising your position as a tenderer), try and find out if they have any targets and stuff and what their requirements are.

Off-topic slightly, reading the accessibility requirements for Aus, interesting that it says:
quote:

This requirement applies to any individual or organisation developing a Worldwide Web page in Australia, or placing or maintaining a Web page on an Australian server.

...so I guess that means that even if you're not in Australia, even if you're using a host with servers in Aus, you're covered by their DDA? Interesting.



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/17/2007 4:57:35)

Yes that is the case as I understand it Womble. It doesn't apply to personal websites from what I understand though. I may be wrong.

Back to the bureaucracy thing though, interesting from some things I've read on their site,, they're well up on all the buzz words that used to frustrate me when working in a Govt. Dept years ago.

I've started writing to them, although only a draft and it won't be sent until the weekend or Monday, but then again I may post it like DPF used to advise. I know how Govt Dept's love reports, so maybe that will be the way to go.

It's funny though, I was going to mention to them that the Govt. Dept I used to work for is in a similar field of interest and really felt that may be to my advantage . . . until I saw their general manager's surname and realised that it was the same surname at least as the boss I told off in his office, refusing to attend any stupid staff training that involved such "ice breaking" techniques as introducing yourself by you shoes. I told him I wanted nothing more to do with that crap and refused point blank to attend any such waste of time meetings.

He asked me "what do you think your future is in this organisation then Nicole?", and I told him "none, I want out". I left with a redundancy package a few months later!

So if the surnames match, it might be his son or something, but I'd better not mention who I used to work for huh?



womble -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/17/2007 5:55:57)

Might be wise. [;)]



jaybee -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/17/2007 6:15:44)

Shoes can be very enlightening. [sm=fie.gif]



Donkey -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/17/2007 6:31:40)

To avoid embarrassment on such training days the use of odour eaters or some other such anti-foot-odour device is highly recommended.



moose -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/17/2007 15:19:54)

Nicole,

[I have edited this post, I went into a big speel and then realised there was a heap of posts and most of what I have said had already been said. Pays to pay attention at 7am]

What I will say is contrary to some of what's been said, I think layman's terms is important here, as is showing you understand the department's role in the community, and using that role is a very good way to ensure they comply with the standards, tell them they need to present a readily accessible site to the public, and the harder it is to use, the less likely it is to draw people to their services - they will appreciate the fact you are concerned for the way they are seen publicly - I used to work for 3 different govt departments - I know how important image was to all of them.



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/18/2007 4:38:05)

Hi Moose,

Thanks for your thoughts. I understand what you are saying and don't intend to use "buzz words" or "baffling web terms" although I do intend to produce a quote that the Public Relations Officer and her General Manager will welcome.

I've just emailed her to let her know that I'm working on the quote as I had hoped to have it ready by tomorrow, but incidents today around here have just put me back a bit, so I told her Monday.

The interesting thing is, and I'm sure you can appreciate being in Australia, that this particular department will I'm sure atttract most website visitors from Politicians, the media especially and then Farmers. As you know Broadband isn't that readily accessible in country areas, meaning that all these PDF's and therefore most of their information is being lost on those in the general public who require their information the most. Politicians and the media will have Broadband so they won't quite realise the error in publishing everything through pdf's.



jadach -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/18/2007 12:43:57)

Funny you asked. I just quoted for a website job for the town I live in.

Prior to meeting with the Town Supervisor, I created a demo-site of what could be. I like doing that because a visual really helps me land the job.

This is my first project working with EWD. Being that I'm using this new software and it really helps keep the code clean and compliant, I did in fact use that as a selling point.

On each page of my demo site I placed the W3C XHTML 1.0 validation link. I used it during my meeting and explained the importance of this. The Town Supervisor acknowledged the importance of having a compliant website, but I really feel I would have gotten the job regardless.

The site I'm creating, or actually re-doing, is jammed full of pdf's and jpg's. Like you, there is alot of organizing I need to do.

Good luck with yours. Sites like these can open doors. Now with EWD I feel more confident. I just need to get used to asp.net opposed to the old DRW. The DRW was a great and easy way to set up user interfaces that they can use to maintain portions of their site. Once I figure that out in the asp.net world, I'll be fine.



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/18/2007 17:29:55)

Thanks Jerry,

Good luck with your site too, I haven't got this one yet.

In some circumstances I have created some prototypes and sent them with my quote, but right now I don't have the time to do that. I used to have a stack of templates on my site that i could show people, but I removed them because they used tables for layout.



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (1/23/2007 0:52:09)

Update:

I sent her a quote and quite a long accompanying letter explaining that the whole site should be redesigned and most of the PDF files should be included on the site.

Spoken to her a couple of times today and she was surprised at how low my quote was compared to the 30k quotes of other companies.

I did know the whole site would cost around 30k but didn't tell her that, I asked whether any other company has explained the legislation that government departments have to abide by and whether any of the had made any mention of accessibility. She said they hadn't, but she was aware of these beforehand, so I guess that gives me a slight upper hand. But I also know what figure to bring my quote in under!

I have until next Monday to re-do my quote!



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (2/27/2007 4:51:35)

Five weeks later and I can finally report something.

I called them 2 weeks ago and they said that they still hadn't decided on the winning tender, so I left it a few weeks and called them yesterday.

They told me that because the four tenders they were considering were all talking about or suggesting vastly different things, they forwarded these tenders to their Head Office in Sydney, the NSW Department of . . . to get advice from. They also contacted their host to see what they had to say?

The State Department returned them advising this local Authority to re-write their spec so that all tenders would be on a level playing field and were quoting on the exact same thing. It'll be emailed to the four of us within a week and then we'll have about a month to re-quote or re-write our quotes.

I'm not really looking forward to spending more days writing another quote, but my partner has just pointed out to me that if the new spec includes a lot about web standards and accessibility, then I'll know that I'm on the right track and that if I can adequately answer the other criteria then I might just be okay.



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/21/2007 4:20:44)

Four months after the initial enquiry and about three and a half since this government authority decided they needed to re-write the site specs and re-send them to the 4 designers who were asked to quote, it's landed in my inbox with a deadline of June 12.

Apparently the four designers all quoted with an emphasis on different things, mine of course was on accessibility and usability and standards compliance, so I felt for sure that if the new spec document had smatterings of accessibility throughout then I'd be in the box seat - but it hasn't.

It's a very well written and well thought out 5 page document and for the most part they are stating the obvious - but the only mention of accessibility is under a heading titled "General Website Requirements" and it's point 2 of 5:

quote:

2. Accessibility
a. If possible, maximum of 3 clicks to access all information on the site
b. Must be easily accessible for people who are in remote, rural and urban centres (eg taking into account downloads for dial up and broadband)


My question to you folks tonight is:

Should I respond to this email overnight and urge the sender to re-issue the tender document with more specific accessibility requirements that they are bound by law to meet - i.e. the Australian Government & NSW Government Guidelines for minimum website standards and accessibility standards?

I mean - it's my strong point in this tender. I can do almost all other things they ask - as I'm sure the other 3 designers can, but it seriously should be part of their specs and they've left it out (even though I stressed this in my initial quote and supporting documents).

Would you email them - or call them first thing in the morning, or would you let this just slip by the wayside so as to not seem to be telling them what to do?

Perplexed!

Nicole



jaybee -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/21/2007 4:58:32)

Absolutely not. You can't call them and tell them to re-do their spec to fit with what you believe they should be doing. All you'll do is put their backs up.

You re-quote to their spec and stress that in addition your pages will meet the Govt guidelines for accessibility required under section xxx of yyy.



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/21/2007 5:04:48)

Message received and understood.

I don't know how I'd have gone about that anyway.

It is however, very disappointing to learn that they either haven't taken the most important parts out of the 4 original submissions and combined them into one spec - or maybe they have?

It's also disappointing to discover that their interpretation of accessibility is far removed from its real meaning.



jaybee -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/21/2007 5:12:39)

Until somebody over there sues, or threatens to sue a Govt dept for an inaccessible web site then little will happen as they're completely oblivious. Once it does happen they'll all be leaping around like rabid fleas trying to sort it out.

Our MPs are all aware of the DDA but none of them have a clue what it says and if you ask they just tell you that yes it's right that Blind People should have access. No mention of anyone else and then they rely entirely on their developer to sort it out. They won't check what's been done as they don't have a clue that they should.

It's up to you to submit a better spec than everyone else. You can't police the entire country.



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/21/2007 5:16:57)

What if I got somebody else to email the Minister responsible for this group of departments about their inaccessible websites?

Oh that's right (is there a forehead slapping smiley?) - it takes months to get a response and I've only got until June 12!



jaybee -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/21/2007 5:34:02)

If you want to go down that path you're better off talking initially to the body who deal with disabilities over there. It carries more weight coming from them and they are probably more than aware of the state of things but you can't tell them to force this department to do what you want. Apart from which you need to check what they sent you very carefully. A lot of these carry confidentiality clauses.



womble -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/21/2007 16:26:18)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Nicole
It's also disappointing to discover that their interpretation of accessibility is far removed from its real meaning.

Accessibility isn't just about making sites accessible to people with disabilities. TBL's original vision for the internet, and the mission of the W3C is that it would be accessible to all, and that included different technologies, and methods of accessing the web.

From the W3C site:
quote:

The social value of the Web is that it enables human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge. One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.

http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission

From the WAI site:
quote:

a key principle of Web accessibility is designing Web sites and software that are flexible to meet different user needs, preferences, and situations



Nicole -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/31/2007 6:51:57)

Having spent the last few days reading through and making notes from the NSW Government website guidelines for their agencies in preparation for my submission - I was starting to feel as if I was in a better position against the unknown competitors just because I felt that if they were considering contracting a designer who had designed other departmental sites (none of which are accessible, no matter how pretty they look), then I was working my way into a position where my research into the requirements they're bound by would be to my and their benefit if they chose me. (long sentence huh? I've been reading too many government publications of late).

But just now I've come across a document that says that all government departments and their agencies have to report compliance with the State Government's Website Style Guidelines by June 30 2007!

Now wouldn't you think that would be a major point in their Project Brief?

It wasn't even mentioned.

Glad I found it.



caz -> RE: Government Department Websites . . . (5/31/2007 8:35:33)

quote:

Now wouldn't you think that would be a major point in their Project Brief?


Who knows the mindset of local government commissioning officers? (Usually 1. cost. 2.cost and 3. cost. [;)] )
You will of course give that requirement prominence in your submission, without labouring the point too much, won't you [8|]



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