Web design and implementation Services

The Vendor is required to provide web design consultant or agency with demonstrated experience in Drupal-based development and higher education website strategy.
- Discovery and Analysis
•    Kickoff meeting with stakeholders
•    Review of existing university website architecture, analytics, user behavior, and branding
•    Comprehensive comparative site analysis of university five primary competitors (to be defined in collaboration with university) including:
1.    Visual design
2.    Information architecture
3.    User experience
4.    Navigation structures
5.    Content strategy highlights
- Strategy and Planning
•    Development of a UX strategy tailored to prospective students, current students, faculty, staff, and other key audiences
•    Recommendations for information architecture, content hierarchy, and navigation
•    Accessibility and mobile-first design standards (WCAG 2.1 compliance minimum)
- Visual Design and Branding
•    New website design concepts that reflect university brand identity
•    Design of a modern, scalable, and cohesive look and feel
•    Design mockups for homepage and 5+ key templates (e.g., academic program, department landing page, news article/blog post, and general content page.)
- Drupal Theming and Template Development
•    Build out of custom Drupal theme and page templates
•    Development of reusable, modular components that support flexibility and scalability
•    Implementation of best practices for performance, accessibility, and SEO
•    Integration support for existing university systems (e.g., Slate, calendar systems, newsfeeds, etc.)
- Hosting Environments setup and Deployment Process
•    Advise and assist IT staff in configuring the existing on-campus rancher platform for deployment to:
o    Test environment
o    Production environment
•    Create processes, workflows, pipelines, etc. For reliable and automated deployment from source control
- Analytics Platform Integration and Reporting
•    Integrate and configure google analytics to capture user behavior and website usage metrics
o    Key events
o    Conversions
o    Goals
•    Assist in the generation of reports created by Google Analytics
- Top 20 Page Development
•    Full design and buildout and university top 20 public-facing pages (e.g., homepage, admissions overview, financial aid, student life, etc.)
•    Content migration, optimization, and formatting in collaboration with university teams
- Training and Documentation
•    Provide training for internal web staff on use of templates, components, and CMS best practices
•    Written documentation for all the custom templates and components
- Optional/recommended Services:
•    SEO audit and baseline strategy
•    Governance and workflow recommendations
•    Content strategy support
•    User testing or stakeholder validation sessions.