Dear members, 

ILO’s Microinsurance Innovation Facility (‘the Facility’)  invites proposals for revamping the Facility’s existing website as described in the document below to make knowledge more accessible to microinsurance practitioners.

The details are given below:

Background

Housed at the International Labour Organization's Social Finance Programme, the Microinsurance Innovation Facility seeks to increase the availability of quality insurance for the developing world’s low-income families to help them guard against risk and overcome poverty. Launched in 2008 with the support of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Facility has actively stimulated microinsurance development in poor countries around the world through three main activities: innovation grants, research projects, and capacity building projects. The focus of these activities is to learn about microinsurance so these lessons can be shared with the broader microinsurance sector.

The Facility uses its website (www.ilo.org/microinsurance) as the primary means of disseminating the lessons being learned in microinsurance through a variety of knowledge products such as Learning Journeys, Emerging Insights, and Thematic Pages. It runs on both the static website and content management systems. However, with the growing number of lessons and knowledge products uploaded in the site, the existing structure and design has become unwieldy and is now in need of revamping to make it more accessible to the target users’ needs and preferences.

Objectives

The website revamp project will undertake the following improvements to strengthen its position as the knowledge hub in microinsurance:

1. Ease of navigation – make the frequently searched information in the website more easily available to target users.
2. Information architecture – organize the information to make it easier to find by target users.
3. User interface design – introduce graphic and other design elements to improve the look and feel of the site, without sacrificing usability.

The optimization of the website server and compatibility of the existing infrastructures and systems could be also considered as an additional objective.

As a result of this project, website users are expected to have an easier and faster access to the information that is most relevant to them, have a pleasant experience interfacing with the site, and develop site loyalty. Ideally, the Facility revamped website will be separated with only a business card on the ILO server.

Project duration

The project is expected to be completed over a period of two to four months starting in February 2013.

Project activities

1. Perform needs assessment based on feedback received and collected by the Facility and results of its usage monitoring and evaluation analysis. If needed, targeted surveys and interviews among key stakeholders of the Facility could be considered to identify needs and preferences of the different segments of website users;
2. Conduct usability testing of the entire Facility website to determine areas of improvement in terms of navigation, searchability, user interface, and graphic design;
3. Provide recommendations that can be implemented to improve the navigation, easier access to the most requested information, searchability, user friendliness and other functionalities of the Facility website, based on the needs assessment, usability testing, and existing website analytics;
4. Provide a new proposed structure of the website reflecting user needs and preferences, based on actual user behaviour;
5. Create a new design and theme that enhances the look and feel and layout of the Facility website, and which incorporates graphical and other visual elements such as photo holders to make the site more appealing; and
6. Liaise and coordinate both with the Facility Knowledge Officer and the development team to ensure seamless implementation of the approved design, structure and new functionalities.

Project deliverables

The following are expected to be delivered as part of the project.

1. Analysis and report on the usability of the site.
2. Report highlighting the results of the needs assessment of the target users of the site, with descriptions of 4-5 different personas representing the different main users of the site.
3. Proposed navigation structure, explaining how it responds to the needs of the different target audiences.
4. Three website graphic design options.

Elements of the Proposal

Bidders will be required to submit a financial and a technical proposal. Proposals arriving after the prescribed deadline for submission of Proposals will not be considered.

Technical Proposal:

• Executive Summary
• Company brief
• Delivery methodology (main ideas and how the agency will deliver on the project)
• Sample of work done on similar projects 
• Resumes of persons who will work on the project
• Breakdown of timeline of deliverables

Financial Proposal:

The bidder is required to provide a detailed price proposal for the project according to the scope of works. The price should be quoted in US Dollars.

Cost of Proposal

The bidder shall bear all costs associated with the preparation and submission of this proposal and the Facility will in no case be held responsible or liable for these costs, regardless of the conduct or outcome of the proposal process.

Clarifications on Proposal Document and Further Information

The interested bidders may contact Ms. Xinxing Li by email during the period specified above for more information on feedback received by the Facility and results of its website usage analysis. Once submitted any such request shall not be entertained and it shall be presumed that the bidder has completely understood the requirement and quoted the price considering the same.

Submission of Proposals & Close of Proposal

Proposals must be sent to Ms. Xinxing Li at lix@ilo.org and received in one email containing the financial proposal and the technical proposal, with the full name and contact details of the bidder.

This proposal will close by 10^th January, 2013 at midnight (Geneva time).

The Facility reserves the right to decline acceptance of any or all proposals during this proposal call.