Brief for Business Information Service website for Manchester

City Council, February 2008

Prepared by: Alan Holding, Principal Digital Development Officer, MDDA

Contributors: Jonathan Ebbs, Business Information Officer, Manchester Library & Information Ser-
vice
Neil MacInnes, Head of Service Improvement, Manchester Library & Information
Service
Last updated: 15 February 2008

MDDA is part of Manchester City Council, and its work to develop this brief was funded by the
European Regional Development Fund.

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Table of contents
Background....................................................................................................................................... 3
Key points from this brief .................................................................................................................. 3
Responding to this brief .................................................................................................................... 3
Contact point for responses .............................................................................................................. 4
Contact us for an informal chat ......................................................................................................... 4
MDDA’s role in this work................................................................................................................... 4
Functional requirements ................................................................................................................... 5
Design requirements......................................................................................................................... 8
Standards requirements.................................................................................................................... 9
Training ........................................................................................................................................... 10
Manuals / help files ......................................................................................................................... 10
Use of Open Source Software ........................................................................................................ 10
Sign-off of work ............................................................................................................................... 10
Ongoing support ............................................................................................................................. 10
Snagging period.............................................................................................................................. 10
Budget............................................................................................................................................. 10
Payment.......................................................................................................................................... 10
Timescales...................................................................................................................................... 10
Appendix 1: Web sites to note ........................................................................................................ 11
Appendix 2: Notes of visual design for the site ............................................................................... 12
Other design notes .................................................................................................................. 12
Appendix 3: Draft navigation structure for the site .......................................................................... 13
Appendix 4: Plans for post-launch phases of the site ..................................................................... 14
Phase 2 (plan to implement soon after the site launches)....................................................... 14
Phase 3 (implement at some point in the future) ..................................................................... 15
Appendix 5: Draft content plan........................................................................................................ 16

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Background
A partnership of 11 local government library services in North West England, led by Manchester
City Council, wants to put in place a website to support the provision of business information ser-
vices to local residents and businesses in their areas.
Some of the benefits the library services want to see the website give customers include:
• Improved customer services
• Increased accessibility to a range of services
• Provides improved access to information to empower and support personal aspirations in-
cluding job seeking, business start up and consumer issues.
• Additional resources delivered online
• Meets expectations of a modern information service, including professional branding and
marketing
The website will aim to provide the following features and types of information:
• Information on the business support services provided by local libraries
• Details on how to access those services
• A blog about news useful to local businesses
• An events calendar
• Case studies / success stories
• A ‘knowledge base’ containing basic information on how to start a business, marketing, find-
ing customers, etc.
• Videos / podcasts
A draft content plan is shown at Appendix 5. Library services staff will provide all the con-
tent, but will need assistance sourcing images to support the visual design.

Key points from this brief

The work to develop the site will be phased. The main work of Phase 1, as set out in this brief, will
be to:
• Produce an engaging, accessible visual design for the site
• Implement a content management system (CMS) to support the provision of the content
• Provide training to library services staff
• Help to implement administration procedures that will enable library services staff to inde-
pendently manage the content on the site
Future phases of work for the site will seek to add additional features and content to the site.
Therefore, this first phase must put in place a solid foundation that can be built on in the future.
Please see the Appendix 4 for plans for future phases of the site.

Responding to this brief

Responses to this brief must clearly explain in as much detail as possible how proposed solutions
will meet the requirements listed below.
Suppliers must show examples of how similar requirements have been / are being met in work with
other clients, by providing website URLs, CDs, screen grabs, access to demonstrations of web-
based software, customer testimonials, documentation, or similar.

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Contact point for responses
Responses must be submitted no later than 5pm, Friday 29 February 2008.
Please submit responses by email to a.holding@manchesterdda.com.
Responses can also be submitted in hard copy to:
Alan Holding
Principal Digital Development Officer
Manchester Digital Development Agency
Lower Ground Floor
117-119 Portland Street
Manchester
M1 6ED
UK
If sending your submission by hard copy, please consider using a service such as Royal Mail’s
‘Recorded Signed For’:
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?catId=400028&mediaId=500201.

Contact us for an informal chat

We are happy answer any questions suppliers may have about this work.
To find out more, please contact:
Jonathan Ebbs, Business Information Officer, Manchester Library & Information Service.
Telephone: +44 (0)161 234 1939.
Email: j.ebbs@manchester.gov.uk.

MDDA’s role in this work

Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) is part of Manchester City Council. MDDA has
worked with the library services to develop this brief, and will be providing impartial advice to help
appoint a supplier for this work.
MDDA’s assistance is funded by the European Regional Development Fund. For more information
about MDDA please visit: http://www.manchesterdda.com/.

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Functional requirements
Below are functions / features that must be implemented during this first phase of the development
of the site.
In responses, suppliers must detail how their proposed solutions will meet each of these require-
ments.

Number Requirement Notes

A1 The CMS must enable users to administer

and manage the content on the site with
little or no knowledge of HTML, CSS, or
other web technologies, and without ex-
cessive reliance on external supplier sup-
port.

A2 Visitors to the site must be able to email

questions to library staff directly from the
site using a simple web form.

A3 The CMS must enable the management of

‘static’ pages, such as an ‘about us’ page.

A4 The CMS must enable the management of This will be used for the ‘news’ section
blog-style categorised ‘posts’. on the site.

A5 The site must use ‘easy-to-read’ URL for- For example, a link to the news section
mats. of the site should be something like:
http://www.example.com/news
And a link to a story in the news sec-
tion something like:
http://www.example.com/news/a-
news-story
The CMS should avoid using exces-
sively long and ‘unreadable’ URL for-
mats.

A6 The CMS must allow differing levels of For example:

user permissions.
Publisher (a “super user”)
Editor
Staff writer
Freelancer

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 Number Requirement Notes

A7 The CMS must enable management of an

image library, and must provide the facility
to easily upload images to the image li-
brary via a web form in the CMS.

A8 The main user interface for the CMS must
be accessible via a web browser.
The web-based interface for the CMS
should support the following browsers:
Microsoft Internet Explorer v6 +
Mozilla Firefox v2 +
Apple Safari v2 +
Opera v9 +

A9 The CMS must use a simple WYSIWYG

(what you see is what you get) interface to
enable users to easily write and edit con-
tent.

A10 The CMS must include the facility to carry

out basic admin of content, such as saving
draft versions of content, “unpublishing”
content, deleting content, and similar.

A11 The CMS must enable management of a

simple document library, and must provide
the facility to easily upload documents
(such as PDFs and Word documents) to
the document library via a web form in the
CMS.

A12 A statistics package must be implemented For example, Google Analytics

to allow the site to track number of visitors (http://www.google.com/analytics/),
to the site, popular search phrases, etc. Mint (http://haveamint.com/).

A13 The CMS must provide the facility to man- This may be provided by just using
age event listings. blog-style posts rather than an events
‘calendar’.

A14 The site must include a comprehensive Integrating a third-party search service
search facility. should be considered.

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 Number Requirement
A15 The site must use ‘friendly’ error pages.
A16 The CMS must have the facility to show
RSS feeds from other websites on the
home page of the site.
A17 The site must provide links to a number of
existing online business information ser-
vices, such as COBRA (COmplete Busi-
ness Reference Advisor).
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Notes
For example, a 404 page should in-
clude plain text explaining the problem,
and provide a link to the home page,
the opportunity to search the site and
other routes back in to the site.
For example, see how
http://popurls.com displays the latest
feeds from digg, Flickr, etc.
Also, see how http://britlitblogs.com
displays feeds from various blogs.
Design requirements
These requirements are design elements that must be implemented in the final design.

Number Requirement Notes

B1 The site must use consistent navigation

elements.

B2 The site must have a ‘commercial’ feel.

Please see Appendix 2 for pointers on the visual design the library service wants for the
new site.

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Standards requirements
Suppliers will be expected to design the site using web standards. The requirements listed below
are the minimum standards that suppliers should develop the site to.

Number Requirement Notes

C1 Markup should be written using valid

XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

C2 Style sheets should be written using valid The CMS must support multiple CSS
CSS 2.0 media types, with initial support for
screen, projection and print.

C3 Client-side scripting should be written us- Access to the content on the web site
ing valid JavaScript. should not fail if JavaScript is not
available on a user’s web browser.
There are no restrictions on suppliers
implementing ‘AJAX’ features on the
site, provided they do not negatively
impact the accessibility of the site.

C4 There are no restrictions on server-side

scripting languages that suppliers can use,
provided that:
• The scripts output valid markup to
the browser
• The hosting environment for the
scripting language is not prohibitively
expensive
• The software license for use of the
scripting language is not prohibitively
expensive
• The scripting language / environ-
ment is well-established, e.g. PHP,
JSP, .NET, Ruby on Rails, etc.

C5 Where possible, the content of the site If suppliers are shortlisted, they will be
should be accessible and conform to Level expected to make clear their under-
Double-A of the W3C’s Web Content Ac- standing of the business reasons for
cessibility Guidelines 1.0. an accessible web site.

C6 The site must use Unicode as the charac-

ter set of web pages.

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Training
Suppliers will be required to provide a maximum of 1 day hands-on training for a maximum of three
library services staff in the operation of the web site systems and procedures. Suppliers must
clearly state costs / rates for the training.

Manuals / help files

Suppliers must provide document(s) that act as an operating manual and / or help system for the
website systems and procedures. These document(s) can be in digital form.

Use of Open Source Software

Suppliers proposing the use of Open Source Software (OSS) solutions will be looked on favoura-
bly. The intellectual property rights (IPR) of modifications to OSS solutions will remain with the sup-
plier. If OSS solutions are proposed, the licensing implications and costs must be made clear.

Sign-off of work
Responses to this brief must make clear the supplier’s sign-off policies and procedures.

Ongoing support
Suppliers must clearly detail the costs for ongoing support related to the site, including but not lim-
ited to:
• Hosting
• Software updates / upgrades
• Support phone / VoIP calls, emails, instant messaging
• Technical maintenance
• Backup procedures
• Levels of emergency response (e.g. what suppliers class as an ‘emergency’) and response
times

Snagging period
The supplier should provide a four week snagging period from the date the site is launched to re-
solve issues not found before launch.

Budget
The maximum budget for this phase of the work is £5000 (exclusive of VAT at 17.5%, and includ-
ing expenses).
An ongoing annual budget to support the hosting of the site will be available.

Payment
Manchester City Council will provide payment on satisfactory completion of the work within 30
days of receipt of invoice, according to Manchester City Council’s financial regulations.

Timescales
• 5pm, Monday 3 March 2008 - Deadline for responses to this brief.
• Week beginning Monday 3 March 2008 - Shortlisting of responses, interviews with shortlisted
suppliers (if necessary) and awarding of contract.
• Monday 14 April 2008 - Launch of web site.

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Appendix 1: Web sites to note
The sites listed below are existing websites that provide similar features and information that the
library services would like to see implemented on the new site.
Like a lot...
http://www.nypl.org/research/sibl/index.html - for the content and the engaging, accessible style
http://www.chow.com – Great balance of design and content. Practical but attractive, good ‘infor-
mal’, welcoming, friendly feel.
http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/ - for the design / content balance.
Like...
http://www.startupnation.com/ - Clear separation and categorisation of content using a clear, un-
cluttered design.
http://www.nypl.org/research/sibl/smallbiz/sbrc/Pages/index.cfm - for the quality content
http://www.bl.uk/bipc/index.html - for content.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/ - easy to read business content, makes it look interesting.
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/ - good design making the subject more appealing, and does not
look like a ‘government’ website.
http://www.fool.co.uk/ - lots of content, backed up by a good layout and clear design.
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ - easy to navigate, useful content
http://www.mtv.com - for content and design mix.
http://www.tvland.com/ - for look and feel.
Don’t like...
http://www.oecd.org – difficult to navigate, unattractive design, even though there’s lots of useful
content.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ - poor visual design, hard to find/understand content, search is really
confusing.
http://www.businessownersideacafe.com/ - great content let down by poor visual design

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Appendix 2: Notes of visual design for the site
Though the site is being funded by a partnership of local government library services, the site must
not look like a ‘council’ website.
To aid suppliers understand the visual design that the library services would like to see for the new
site, a Flickr photoset of sites that feature designs that the library services like is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdda/sets/72157603864698988/.

Other design notes

From feedback given at a planning workshop facilitated by MDDA in January 2008, here are some
comments about the design of the site:
• ‘Non-council’ feel
• ‘Funky’ design, but classy
• Easy navigation
• A shop window for services
• A ‘commercial’ design to attract new customers

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Appendix 3: Draft navigation structure for the site
This draft structure is provided to assist proposals for organising content on the new site.

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Appendix 4: Plans for post-launch phases of the site
During a planning workshop facilitated by MDDA in January 2008, library services staff identified
features for the post-launch phases of the site.

Phase 2 (plan to implement soon after the site launches)

These are features that are not essential to have when the site launches, but which must be
planned for so that the site can support them soon after launch.

Feature Notes

Audio podcasts To provide information on latest news for small

and starting businesses.

Video podcasts To highlight success stories, report on busi-

ness forum events, and similar.

Newsletter sign-up and newsletter archive May use a third-party service such as
SqueezyMail, Campaign Monitor, or similar.

Live text chat sessions between customers This could be done via the site, or using a
and library services staff third-party services such as Skype, GoToMeet-
ing, or similar.

Online payments To accept business forum membership fees,

pay for print-on-demand services, and similar.

Enhanced services for library members By entering in their library card number, library
members will be able to access additional ser-
vices such as the library catalogue, database
of business advice information, etc.

Surveys Will probably use a third-party service such as

SurveyMonkey, or similar.

Members forum This may be via a third-party service such as

Google Groups, Huddle, or similar.

Print-on-demand shopping trolley For customers who currently have to travel a

long way to physically visit their local business
library service, this would allow them to pick
information to be printed out so that they can
pick it up the next time they visit the library, or
have it posted to them.

Build up a database of customers to support

newsletters, event promotion, etc.

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 Feature Notes

Video conference with a business advisor May be delivered via third-party service such
as Skype, GoToMeeting, and similar.

Polls Simple multiple choice polls

Social bookmarking Ability to bookmark pages on the site using

services such as del.icio.us, reddit, digg, Tech-
norati, and similar.

Phase 3 (implement at some point in the future)

These are features that are either not important at this time, or will require significant research or
funding to implement.

Feature Notes

Key information provided in other languages This may include videos of information in Brit-
ish Sign Language, as well as translations into
other texts.

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Appendix 5: Draft content plan
This draft plan is provided to enable suppliers to understand the type of information that will be
provided by the site, and to prompt ideas for how the content would be categorised in the CMS.
Starting a business
• Introductory text
• Link to the COBRA database
• Getting starting
• Forming a company
• Company information
• Finding customers
• Writing a business plan
• Funding
• Doing your homework - research matters
• IP / Patents
Running your business
• Introductory text
• Link to the COBRA database
• Book-keeping
• Marketing
• Health and Safety
• Employee law
• Paying your staff
Jobhunting
• Introductory text
• Link to the COBRA database
• Looking for jobs
• Target key employers - statistics, etc.
• Research the market - going rates of pay
Inventors
• Link to Inventors Info Point website
Personal Finance
• Introductory text
• Link to the COBRA database
• Stocks and shares
• Pensions
• Investments & Savings
• Mortgage data

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 • Inflation
• Taxation
Help for consumers
• Introductory text
• Link to the COBRA database
• Find company directors
• Companies House
• CCJ
• Locate Head Office
• Check financial strength of a business
Local Authority pages
• One for each local authority explaining the services they provide
Success Stories
Focus on...
FAQs
Features / interviews features
How to guides
• Podcasts
• Videos
Email a question
Chat to a business advisor
Event listings
Blog

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