This is the final Drupal.org Redesign RFP.
Contract award schedule:
- June 25: RFP released
- July 7: Vendors express intent to bid, submit questions for clarification
- July 14: DA issues responses to questions
- July 25: Vendor responses due
- August 4: Notification to finalists (2-3 will be selected)
- August 4-8: Interviews with finalists
- August 12: Vendor selected
- Week of August 18: Project kickoff meeting
Project deliverables:
Phase I – Research:
- competitive analysis of other project site structures
- refinement/finalization of personae and tasks
Phase II – Information Architecture:
- revised information architecture and organizational framework guidelines
- marketing content audit and revised manuscript for drupal.org, excluding subdomains
- approved, finalized wireframes
Phase III – Design:
- preliminary design concepts
- usability test report on design directions
- layered .psd for site templates
- .eps of logo/mark in CMYK
- brand style guideline documentation that includes articulation of the grid and font specifications
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| drupal_rfp_final.pdf | 760.23 KB |
Comments
Just a typo correction
From page 4: "Drupal has the mindshare and the momentum to enter the mainstream, but key to that achieving that goal will be the success of this project."
From:
"...but key to that achieving that goal..."
To:
"...but the key to achieving that goal..."
http://nicksergeant.com
Thanks!
Draft has been edited.
where's the thought?
From page 4: "Drupal has the mindshare and the momentum to enter the mainstream, but key to that achieving that goal will be the success of this project."
From:
"...but key to that achieving that goal..."
To:
"...but the key to achieving that goal..."
zzzzzzzzzzz
"Drupal has the mindshare and the momentum to enter the mainstream, but the key to achieving that goal (put the "key" in pls.) will be the success of the project
--don't know if I'm right but it didn't sound right...what do u guys think?
updates
Just had a quick look through. webchick and I discussed possible architecture a couple of months back which resulted in this draft: http://groups.drupal.org/node/10003, and these two related discussions http://groups.drupal.org/node/10223 http://groups.drupal.org/node/10476 - these are a significant update in terms of the IA sketches webchick did originally, and IMO page 10 should be updated to reflect the current state of the discussion.
Also a couple of minor corrections to page 2:
Drupal 6 didn't add the forum module to core, that's been there for a long time.
'php filter' should be 'php filter module' since it was making it a separate module which was the security enhancement.
Oops!
Sorry, I missed those other posts. Draft has been edited to reflect their inclusion.
Any word on the actual
Any word on the actual graphical elements? I have not heard much about this or how it was going to be handled.
Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Tj Holowaychuk
Vision Media - Victoria BC Web Design
Victoria British Columbia Web Design School
That's exactly what this RFP is about
I encourage you to download and read the draft RFP (keeping in mind it is not yet final or approved) and if it fits with your firm's capabilities to submit your name to participate in the actual bid process: http://groups.drupal.org/node/12075
Kieran asked the Drupal Association to review this...
So here goes!
My general feedback is there is a lot here that reads like marketing spiel than what I would envision in my mind as being an RFP (not knowing much about RFPs at all, mind you :P). For example, what I would consider the key point of the RFP, the business requirements, is just [Goes here]. We're not providing a lot of direction to go on here, but maybe that's "by design" so that we let the people who get the RFP tell us what needs to be done.
If I go through this RFP as someone who might bid on it, here are some questions that come up for me that I don't think are fully addressed:
- What exactly is the scope of what I'm expected to design?
- What's the anticipated budget? A lot of the language in here makes it sound like this site is maintained by a rag-tag group of volunteers. If I'm Adaptive Path, should I even try to respond to this RFP?
- Who am I going to be accountable to? There's a lot here about the fact that the "community" is responsible for the site; is everyone with an opinion to give able to influence the direction of the project, or will it be a handful of people?
- What's going to happen long-term? If the site is maintained willy-nilly, what's to say that the work I do to create a grand vision/navigation structure won't be blown to smithereens by some well-meaning but no-eye-for-detail people down the road?
One thing that I think is critical is to have ongoing reports to the community about what's going on. I don't think the community as a whole should be able to "design by committee" (we should appoint a small team for reviewing all stuff), but I think transparency with "Here are the completed personas." "Here is the design we've decided on" would be good, because that's one thing this project has suffered from since its inception; it's unclear to the community at any given point what's happening and who's working on it and where things are at.
Nit-picky stuff:
- Date on front page need to be changed. ;)
- ...reflect the goals of the Drupal community and incorporate the more useful features. < I'd drop "the" here.
- and design of a new concept and templates for drupal.org < what is design of a concept? maybe this should be "design of new templates" or "creation of a new conceptual design" or..?
- All content, coding and graphics will become the sole property of the Drupal Association. < coding? isn't the coding a) out of scope, and b) GPL, and the site content property of its author? I'd say something more specific like "all wireframes, designs, templates, and any other work output generated will become..."
- To be effective, our Web site must be: < 1 and 2 don't start with "A," and the rest do. Looks kind of odd.
- businesses (AOL corporate, Sun’s OpenOffice extensions, Ubuntu, Yahoo!), < Ubuntu isn't really a business. I'd mention Adobe instead. Maybe make a separate bullet for open source projects, and include Eclipse, jQuery, and Ubuntu?
- - Increased the number of contributors to core 57% < probably "by" 57%
- - Added key features to core including, open id and advanced actions < no comma; it's "Open ID"; people don't know what advanced actions are. I'd say "internationalization" instead.
- Simplified administration of the cms < CMS is a buzz-word, maybe "Simplified administrative backend"?
- Rebuilt the theme engine so design is easier < I don't like "design is easier" ... maybe "so that it's easier than ever to make Drupal not look like Drupal"? Meh...
- Improved its security with update notifications, php filter module, and password strength checking < They don't know what PHP filter module is. I'd remove it.
- Drupal.org has 200,000 users < actually 300,000+ now. :)
- about drupal association < about "the"
- DA is providing the financial support for this project. < is a budget on topic here? That's something I'd probably want to know while reading this.
- with 16% of pages as exits. < I don't know what that means.
- under the formal responsibility of the Drupal Association, a Belgium-based non-profit founded in 2006 to support and promote the Drupal project. < you already talked about what the DA is, I don't think you need to repeat it here. "under the formal responsibility of the Drupal Association" is fine.
- Improve site navigation patterns so that e.g. users with different needs more readily connect with relevant resources. < I don't know what that means.
- The successful respondent will be expected to complete the following deliverables. < I would like to suggest that this work happen in the open, with community feedback integrated as we go along.
- submit via e-mail to by 5pm CDT on July 7, 2008: Tiffany Farriss (drupal@palantir.net) confirmation will be sent immediately upon successful receipt) < looks like some copy/paste bug. "submit via e-mail to Tiffany Farriss (drupal@palantir.net) by 5pm CDT on July 7, 2008:confirmation will be sent immediately upon successful receipt"
- process and schedule < all of these dates need to be revised.
- In April 2007, Kieran Lal conducted a series of ten interviews < maybe mention that Kieran is a board member too?
All around, great job!! I'm excited to see some movement here. :)
Thanks!
Nitpicky stuff should all be resolved.
And here is some scattershot response to the questions I can respond to:
- This is as market-y as I would expect in the RFPs that come across my desk. It goes to show a possibly unfamiliar audience that we are a great organization with a good project.
- I think the deliverables punchlist is makes pretty clear what we are expecting them to do as a part of this project.
- Typically, budget is not included explicitly in the RFP, although should it come up, we'll respond as part of the question phase of the RFP process.
- This project is certainly a departure for this community, but I think it's important that anyone who responds understand and respect the value of the community, while realizing that on a day-to-day basis they will be working with a committee authorized by the DA Board.
http://www.slideshare.net/lro
http://www.slideshare.net/lrosenfeld/redesign-must-die-381947?src=embed
SCNR
(Mollom sucks)
Great!
Great Argument:
1) Drupal.org needs a non-drupal search.module searching ability. Jeremy how long until you can install Xaphian?
2) Gerhard, you need to drop your objection to Google analytics so we can show everyone detailed analytics on Drupal.org.
3) I think we should look at a site feedback service like GetSatisfaction, or a constant survey tool.
There now, we have a UX toolkit.
K
Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign
Enabling Google Analytics
Gerhard and I discussed Google Analytics and agreed the benefits in properly informing the community to help with the redesign were critical to effectively informing the redesign process. We didn't want to spend a lot of money on consultants telling us what the community could figure out itself.
Jeremy Andrews is proceeding with a third party search tool against scratch.drupal.org.
I am going to investigate how to get qualitative feedback on Drupal.org on a regular basis.
Cheers,
Kieran
Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign
I think GA is a fantastic
I think GA is a fantastic starting point. Thanks for getting this going.
Once we've had a few weeks of data to review, we should consider getting a more sophisticated system in place (Omniture, CorreMetrics, etc.). This would likely cost us some money (they charge per server call typically) but it'd be well worth it. Having used many of these I've seen companies derive greater value from the more sophisticated system
I'm happy to spearhead this, from writing a proposal outlining the advantages, setting up demos if you want them, etc. to negotiating a good deal with a top tier provider and getting it setup and installed (if you don't put the effort in to configure and customize the systems you don't derive as much value as you could).
Qualitative research
Here's a list of qualitative methods we can use:
1) Persona development - slide 21
2) Negotiaton - slide 21
3) Stake holder interviews - slide 23
4) Ethnographic studies - slide 23
5) Task analysis studies - slide 25
6) I think we can also get feedback from tools like getsatisaction and other tools.
Kieran
Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign
Going once, going twice
Thanks for everyone's review and comments thus far. I've incorporated all the feedback, included the business objectives, and taken one final pass at editing it for redundancy and pesky spelling errors. Many thanks, as always, to everyone who helped get it to this point. :)
This is the final call for any show-stoppers on this RFP. (Please don't make me redo the schedule again!) I'd very much like to release this RFP on Wednesday, June 25, 2008.
Seriously, let's release this RFP so we can keep making progress toward a new, better Drupal.org.