B -- B -- FOCUS GROUP/USABILITY TESTS AND INTERIM REDESIGN OF FIRSTGOV.GOV

Notice Date

December 19, 2001

Contracting Office

General Services Administration, Office of Government-wide Policy, Office of Acquisition Policy, 1800 F Street NW Room 4012, Washington, DC, 20405

ZIP Code

20405

Solicitation Number

GS00A02PDR0001

Response Due

December 28, 2001

Point of Contact

Michael Jackson, Contracting Officer, Phone (202) 208-4949, Fax (202) 501-3161, Email michael.jackson@gsa.gov

Description

Are there any points of the test plan that the government has already identified (mission critical or otherwise) that are to be included in this plan? Yes. See next answer. If yes, can this information be made available to prospective offerors/bidders prior to bid submission deadline with enough time allowed to incorporate into a responsive proposal? This information will be made available at the time of the award. Has the government received feedback to clearly identify areas in the problem statement, which will be required to be addressed during the performance period? Yes, but the information is not sufficient. See next answer. If so, can the government provide a copy or statement of problems, which have already been identified and will most likely be included in the test plan. No. The awardee will help categorize and rank the issues or opportunities we have identified and help identify others. Whose responsibility is payment of participant incentives, the government, or the contractors, since the contract is being awarded as a ?firm fixed price? this is an important element? Participants can be volunteers. Otherwise, participant incentives are at the expense of the contractor, which are part of the contract costs. Can the costs associated with recruitment (facilities are already at government expense) and participant incentives, be modified (in the contract) to become direct costs, which are then paid by the contract, then billed to the government as a direct cost to the contract? All costs associated with performance should be in the price proposal. There are three primary customers they list -- citizens, businesses, and governments. Are there any further specifications around these customers (e.g. governments to include state, city, county governments, or for citizens to include all or only those who are online experienced?) Participants -- government employees from all levels of government and citizens must be computer literate, and all must have at least a small amount of experience online. Under Task 1 and later under Deliverable it says "up to three usability tests and up to four one-to-one interviews". Does this really mean up to three focus groups and four sets of one-on-one usability tests-one for each stakeholder group? This make more sense for what is typically done in usability testing. No. We expect three focus groups and/or group usability sessions, up to three one-on-one usability tests, as well as four interviews with stakeholders. Are there key finds you?re looking for through usability testing? Yes, what the consumer market wants and needs. Are we correct in assuming that these stakeholders are government employees who would participate as part of their job, and thus there would be no need to recruit them or compensate them for there time? We expect to use a few government employees, but contractors should expect to recruit from the appropriate levels of government. They will not have to be compensated if tests are done during workday hours. Should the cost portion of a submitted response include the cost of participant incentives? Yes, however, some of the participants can be volunteers, such as government employees. What stakeholders are anticipated to be participants in the in-depth interviews? We will provide this guidance at the time of the contract award. The solicitation specifies 3 usability tests; we assume that each test will be with one of the three audiences outlined in the statement of work -- consumers, business, and government audiences. Is this correct? Are "government" audiences defined simply as individuals who work for the Federal government in some capacity? The three audiences are correct. The contractor can mix audiences in the sessions. Government employees can be local, state, federal, or tribal employees. In what ways is the California site judged to be superior? Is this based on existing user research with each site? What criteria were used to evaluate the sites? We benchmarked a number of sites and found that the California site had a number of desirable features, such as online transactions and other functionalities. Could you explain the intent of the four one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders? What type of information are you expecting to come from this? We wish to know what our key stakeholders expect of the FirstGov site. Please define the term ?stakeholder.? Stakeholders are organizations, institutions, and individuals who have a stake in the success of FirstGov or a concern in what we do. These include our customers, our partners, other agencies, and outside organizations. Under Task 1, #3, you mention facilitators, observers and notetakers for the groups. We are not sure who these people would be, unless you are speaking of your staff, who will be attending the groups to take notes for your own input. We usually audio/and or videotape the groups and do our own analysis back at our office. We expect the contractor to facilitate or conduct the sessions. You may propose audio or videotaping, but we do not require it. If not, the contractor would take notes. Our staff will observe and also take notes. Redesign Is Section 508 compliance a requirement for the interim redesign? Yes In your consideration of customer channels, are you considering two-way communication in the channels identified (i.e., government to business as well as business to government, etc.)? Yes. We have three customer channels -- Government to Citizen, Government to Business, and Government to Government. They include functionality related to 2-way customer relationship management, including communication. Under Task 2, Item 4, will the awarded contractor redesign the entire site or provide new templates while enhancing the existing main screens and perhaps second level screens? Redesign the entire site if appropriate, and provide new template mockups in HTML of main and second level screens. How many designs or templates do you want? We require up to 14 templates ? four levels into three customer segments plus two other customized pages. Must the improved site design be coded in HTML and functional, or can the templates be a mockup that show how each successive screen should appear, with the implementation to be performed outside this contract? Implementation will be performed outside this contract. However, we require the improved site design to be in HTML. Who is CMS, and what is their role in this project? CMS is an acronym for ?content management system.? The CMS refers to a comprehensive, automated information technology solution permitting non-technical staff to add or update content to a web site within guidelines developed by FirstGov Content Team. Please provide some background on the need for an interim solution. We would like to know how/why the existing site has been judged to be lacking, and why there is a need for a quick interim solution, rather than proceeding directly to the larger enhancement effort? FirstGov plans to keep abreast of customer needs and to work to implement the solutions of the new Administration for electronic government. How is the interim effort related to the larger effort -- will the contractor be retained to continue its work once the larger effort is underway? Should our proposal address our capabilities with regard to the larger effort? If we require further assistance, we will put out a new solicitation in regard to the larger effort. Which vendors provide the content management system and customer relationship management system? We will supply this information at the time of the award. Will the awarded contractor be responsible for content population? No, FirstGov is responsible for content population. Is the site comprised of static HTML pages or generated by a database? If static, how many pages are there? If database driven, what kind of database is it? Are we responsible for editing the database in any way? The site is made up of both static and Oracle dynamic pages. The contractor will not be responsible for editing the database. Referring to the General Acceptance Criteria for Accuracy, what are the criteria for the accepted elements of style? Is there a Style Guide? We will provide guidance at the time of the contract award. How many hits does the site get per day on average? What is the projected average number of hits per day once the site is redesigned? Do you have any other detailed site traffic analysis such: as average number of pages viewed, time spent on the site, or percent repeat visitors? FirstGov gets about 200,000 hits a day. We will other discuss site traffic figures and our expectations at the time of the contract award. Is site traffic and web trends data available to bidders? Only site traffic, as given above. Are prior usability testing findings available to bidders, or to the successful contractor? To the successful contractor. What are the services to be repositioned? Are they limited to the online transactions and government shopping? No. How many template designs does FirstGov maintain and how many are expected to be modified? Twelve in all have to be modified. What tool has been used for existing templates and/or to be used for new templates (Dreamweaver, FrontPage, etc.)? Dreamweaver, but we welcome suggestions. What is the expected scope/extent of graphical improvements? Best of breed, which means more graphics. Are there any special requirements of the site that need to be taken into account based on who will be making changes to the site? (Does the person making changes to the site know HTML?) No. FirstGov makes changes to the site. Do you need the site to be editable by many people without HTML skills or is there one person in charge of the site maintenance. FirstGov staff will maintain and manage the site, but when our new management system is launched, we expect multiple content providers to be able to add content with FirstGov authorization. Can the government provide a set of current operating (content/services) specifications of the FirstGov system and functionality? No, we will provide this information at the time of the award. How is content managed today on the site? Specifically, what development tools and/or web site authoring techniques were/are used to build and maintain the site? FirstGov manages the site through the use of Java/JSP using WebGain Studio and Macromedia products. What format should the templates be delivered in? HTML or JSP. Do they also want us to include in the proposal doing the actual redesign or only provide the reports for the web site designers chosen by the GSA? No. Your proposal should not include implementing the redesign. Provide HTML mockups and a report of findings. How often are links updated or changed and who will be responsible for that process? We make changes to our site at least weekly. However, the contractor is not responsible for updating or changing links. FirstGov will implement the redesign. Are there sections or topics on your current wish list for your site that you would be adding regardless of this study and redesign? Yes, FirstGov will continue to add sections and topics as we become aware of customer wants and needs, and as agencies add new information and services that we wish to highlight. We will also add online transactions and other features in keeping with the Administration?s directives to accelerate electronic government. Do you want to have any opportunity to collect data from your site visitors? We collect no personal information about our visitors when they visit our website unless they choose to provide that information to us. Can a site visitor elect to have new information on a specific topic e-mailed to them as it becomes available? We recently launched a Subscription Center, a page on which a visitor can get e-mail newsletters from nine participating portals. We are interested in customization and would welcome proposals along this line. Under Task 2, Interim Design, Step 3 it states that the contractor will develop a plan to migrate content to any newly developed templates. Does this mean that programming must also be developed to implement the plan or does it mean that no programming is required and the contractor will merely assist the FirstGov staff as stated in Step 5, and the FirstGov staff will do the programming? We require the improved site design to be in HTML or JSP. FirstGov will implement the new design with the assistance of the contractor.

Web Link

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Record

Loren Data Corp. 20011221/BSOL001.HTM (D-353 SN5155F5)