Website Review

IWM is looking to engage an Agency to support us through all stages of the project, although an appointment beyond phase 1 is subject to the satisfactory performance of the Agency at each phase of the work.

This will, ideally allow us to proceed with a contained budget for phase 1 and build an evidence-based case for the budget for the second phase.

Phase 1: the first phase is focused on mapping what we have and assessing its fitness for purpose – in effect, looking under the hood and assessing what exactly we are dealing with.

We believe the second phase can only be fully scoped through the work of the first phase.

This is because the first will tell us to what degree we either: work to improve what we have; or we start from the ground up.

Phase 2: the second phase will have the more ambitious aim to map out the fundamental architecture, user journeys, design principles and a prioritised development list for an overhauled website.

It should produce the foundational architecture and UX principles from which all future development will be an iteration or enhancement With this in mind, we are looking for an agency that has in-house, or which can work with trusted partners to deliver: user experience and Drupal expertise as a minimum, and ideally also digital strategy development expertise.

For phase 1 and phase 2 it is essential that as well as mapping the limitations of our current UX and then planning the UX we want to build, we also relate this to our current Drupal set up, to ensure the fitness-for purpose of our website runs from the Drupal build right through to the end user experience (UX).

Our partner agency will therefore need to look under the hood of our Drupal set up and assess: first, how and why our current setup is causing obstacles; and second, in the next phase the principles and practices we need to apply in future to underpin our UX roadmap.

When we come to this second phase, consideration of the UX principles for an overhauled website naturally leads to consideration of our wider digital strategy.

As a result of this our ideal partners will also bring wider digital strategy development experience.

This does not need to be drawn from the museum or cultural sector, but this will be considered a strength in any interested agency and if the experience is elsewhere they will need to demonstrate its relevance.