Attachment B - Business Requirements.xlsx
XLSX spreadsheet 31 KB Posted
- Solicitation number
- BD-27-1036-EDU02-EDU02-133022
- Issued by
- Massachusetts
About this file
This document is a Business Requirements attachment for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Website Modernization Services RFQ (27ITS81MP01). The attachment outlines 56 high-level business requirements that bidders must review and confirm their ability to deliver, organized into categories including end-user experience, content governance, accessibility, multilingual support, search functionality, analytics, and migration planning. The document requires bidders to check or uncheck each requirement item and submit a separate narrative summary limited to five pages as part of RFQ Section 9B. Key requirement areas include designing an audience-based and task-based navigation structure, developing content governance controls and approval workflows, ensuring WCAG accessibility compliance, supporting multiple languages with synchronized translations, implementing responsive design across devices, and establishing analytics and continuous improvement processes. Additional requirements address information architecture refinement, stakeholder validation through user testing, alignment with the Massachusetts Design System, AI readiness for future capabilities, and security and compliance adherence to Commonwealth standards.
The document does not contain specific pricing terms, contract duration, renewal options, set-asides, incumbent information, or funding amounts, as it functions as a requirements specification rather than a procurement announcement. Bidders are expected to address their capability to deliver against all 56 business requirements during the proposal response phase. The modernization effort aims to create a user-centered, accessible, searchable, and multilingual website that supports DESE's business, policy, compliance, governance, and operational needs. Detailed technical requirements, including specifications for Drupal, AWS infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and Mass Design System implementation, are provided separately in Attachment D - Technical Requirements, which bidders must also review and respond to in conjunction with this business requirements document.
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Read Me Project Name: DESE Website Modernization Services Document Name: Attachment B - Business Requirements Last Updated: 8/13/2026
This tracker contains the High-Level Business Requirements.
The modernization effort should create a more user-centered, accessible, searchable, multilingual, and maintainable website while supporting DESE’s business, policy, compliance, governance, content management, and operational needs.
This document focuses on DESE’s business requirements, including user needs, content needs, governance, accessibility, multilingual support, search, migration outcomes, stakeholder validation, and operational readiness.
Detailed technical requirements, including Drupal, AWS, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, monitoring, Mass Design System implementation, API readiness, AI technical readiness, and Legacy ASP preparation are provided in Attachment D – Technical Requirements.
Note: Bidders must review and respond (check/uncheck) to each requirement in this attachment. Bidders must also provide a separate narrative summary (5-page limit) as part of RFQ Section 9 B.
| Fields | Definitions |
| BR # | The unique ID number. |
| Requirement Area | Requirement category. |
| Bidder Response Item | Specific response items the bidder must check/uncheck each requirement. |
| Can Deliver Item? | Checkbox for confirmation. |
tc={B29E00B3-BF2F-4AC8-A07A-424E39534940}: [Threaded comment]
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Comment:
We should be consistent - either use periods for all or none Reply:
Updated We should be consistent - either use periods for all or none
Updated
High-Level Business Requirement
| High-Level Business Requirements | |||
| BR # | Requirement Area | Bidder Response Item | Can Deliver Item? |
| BR-01 | End-User-Centered Website Experience | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver End-User-Centered Website Experience, including the ability to organize the website around public user roles, goals, and common tasks; support audience-based and task-based navigation across the website; and address accessibility, multilingual needs, mobile and cross-device use, search, and content governance as part of the user experience. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-02 | Audience-Based Navigation | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Audience-Based Navigation, including the ability to support navigation paths for DESE-approved audience groups; recommend audience group refinements during Requirement Refinement phase; and validate audience-based navigation with stakeholders and representative users. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-03 | Task-Based Navigation | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Task-Based Navigation, including the ability to design navigation around common user tasks such as licensure, special education, forms, policies, school data, guidance, and contacts; reduce reliance on DESE’s internal organizational structure for public navigation; and validate task-based pathways through user testing or stakeholder review. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-04 | Home/Landing Pages and Layout Design | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Home/Landing Pages and Layout Design, including the ability to redesign the mega menu, homepage, landing pages, and interior page layouts; provide reusable page templates or layout patterns for DESE review; and align page layouts with approved design standards and user testing feedback. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-05 | Information Architecture | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Information Architecture ("IA"), including the ability to deliver a proposed site map and public navigation model; organize the information architecture around user needs, roles, and tasks; and validate the information architecture through stakeholder input and user testing. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-06 | Content Model and Governance Controls | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Content Model and Governance Controls, including the ability to support DESE’s need for consistent, governed content management across the future website; and enable DESE to manage content review, approval, publishing, updates, ownership, accuracy, accessibility, translation, search, and lifecycle needs. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-07 | Taxonomy, Metadata, Content Model, and Naming Standards | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Taxonomy, Metadata, Content Model, and Naming Standards, including the ability to support governed taxonomy and metadata to improve classification, discoverability, search, ownership, reporting, tracking, migration, and maintenance; support consistent naming standards for pages, documents, media, files, labels, and categories to improve clarity, search, governance, and maintenance; and support structured file organization for documents, media, and digital assets to improve ownership, tracking, migration readiness, and maintenance. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-08 | Breadcrumbs and Site Orientation | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Breadcrumbs and Site Orientation, including the ability to provide breadcrumb navigation and contextual navigation cues; help users understand where they are within the website structure; and support related links or orientation cues that help users move to relevant content. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-09 | Priority Resource Hubs | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Priority Resource Hubs, including the ability to design consolidated resource hubs for high-priority or complex topics; include related guidance, forms, contacts, FAQs, documents, and next steps within resource hubs; and validate priority hub structure with DESE stakeholders and representative users. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-10 | Content Architecture and Content Audit | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Content Architecture and Content Audit, including the ability to conduct a full content audit of webpages, documents, media, and related content; identify gaps, duplication, ROT content, ownership issues, and navigation challenges; and redesign content architecture around user needs rather than internal organizational structure. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-11 | Plain Language and Content Readability | The Bidder confirms its ability to work with DESE stakeholders to advise on plain language and content readability, including applying plain-language principles; reducing jargon and improving readability for families, students, educators, and other public audiences; and developing guidance or templates that promote clear, consistent, and accessible content. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-12 | Visual Aids and Quick-Reference Supports | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Visual Aids and Quick-Reference Supports, including the ability to support icons, color-coded categories, visual workflows, infographics, summaries, FAQs, or quick-reference content; recommend where visual supports are appropriate for complex or high-use content; and ensure visual supports meet accessibility requirements. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-13 | Explainer Content and Tutorials | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Explainer Content and Tutorials, including the ability to support short explainer videos, tutorials, or step-by-step guidance for complex topics; identify priority topics where explainer content would improve user understanding; and ensure explainer content is accessible and understandable for diverse user groups. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-14 | Forms and Downloadable Materials | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Forms and Downloadable Materials, including the ability to improve how users find forms, guidance, data, and downloadable materials; support document metadata, ownership, accessibility status, and lifecycle tracking; and connect downloadable materials to relevant webpages, topics, audiences, and tasks. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-15 | Data Context and Interpretation Support | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Data Context and Interpretation Support, including the ability to provide plain-language labels, definitions, summaries, and contextual guidance for data content; help users understand school, district, assessment, accountability, and reporting information; and support comparison or contextual data features. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-16 | Search and Content Discovery | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Search and Content Discovery, including the ability to support plain-language search, synonyms, acronyms, metadata, filtering, and relevance ranking; improve discovery of webpages, documents, resource libraries, and related content; and support search recommendations that reduce user frustration and abandoned searches. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-17 | Guided Search Assistance | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Guided Search Assistance, including the ability to support autocomplete, suggested terms, guided prompts, or related content recommendations; treat chatbot, NLP, or AI-assisted search as future readiness unless separately approved; and design guided search assistance that supports common user tasks and plain-language queries. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-18 | Search Scope and Document Discoverability | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Search Scope and Document Discoverability, including the ability to define how webpages, documents, resource libraries, metadata, tags, and downloadable files appear in search; reduce low-context document results in search results; and connect documents to relevant webpages, topics, audiences, and user tasks. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-19 | Search Result Quality | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Search Result Quality, including the ability to prioritize relevant, current, and authoritative content in search results; reduce visibility of outdated, duplicate, archived, or low-context materials; and recommend search-tuning practices for ongoing improvement. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-20 | SEO Best Practices | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver SEO Best Practices, including the ability to support clear page titles, descriptions, metadata, and search-friendly content structure; support approved SEO monitoring tools or integrations; and align SEO practices with DESE governance and content standards. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-21 | Search KPIs | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Search KPIs, including the ability to track search KPIs such as top queries, no-result searches, click-through rates, refinements, exits, and abandonment points; provide reporting or dashboards for search performance review; and recommend how DESE should use search data for continuous improvement. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-22 | Search Governance and Ownership | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Search Governance and Ownership, including the ability to define ownership for search tuning, metadata quality, tagging rules, and search-result improvement; recommend governance practices for search configuration and maintenance; and document how search governance will be managed after launch. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-23 | Content Governance Model | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver a Content Governance Model, including the ability to support DESE in defining content ownership, approval authority, review cycles, and publishing roles and responsibilities; establish governance for taxonomy, labeling, translation, messaging consistency, and content maintenance; and provide recommendations, templates, tools, or documentation to support both effective content approval and consistent, searchable, and maintainable content. | FALSE |
| BR-24 | DESE Governance Decision Ownership | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver DESE Governance Decision Ownership, including the ability to support DESE in defining and implementing governance processes; however, DESE will retain final decision-making authority for policy, content ownership, approvals, and publishing rules; provide recommendations and implementation guidance for governance decisions; and document governance roles, decision points, and approval responsibilities. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-25 | Content Lifecycle and ROT Management | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Content Lifecycle and ROT Management, including the ability to support review dates, lifecycle status, archive/removal rules, and ROT reporting; support ownership accountability and scheduled content reviews; and recommend automated alerts or stewardship practices for outdated content. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-26 | Role Definitions and Permissions | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Role Definitions and Permissions, including the ability to support defining business roles for content creation, review, approval, publishing, and maintenance; support defining responsibilities for translation review, accessibility review, content ownership, and ongoing updates; and acknowledge that final role ownership and approval authority remain with DESE. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-27 | Approval Workflow | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Approval Workflow, including the ability to support DESE in defining approval workflows for content creation, review, publishing, updates, and retirement; support defining accessibility review, translation review, approval checkpoints, and escalation paths; and acknowledge that final publishing authority and approval decisions remain with DESE. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-28 | Governed Editorial Experience | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Governed Editorial Experience, including the ability to support a governed editorial experience for trained DESE content contributors to create and maintain consistent, accurate, accessible, searchable, and current content; support approved templates, required content information, review expectations, and content lifecycle responsibilities; and support editorial processes that help maintain content quality, consistency, accessibility, searchability, and currency over time. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-29 | Draft Preview and Pre-Publication Review | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Draft Preview and Pre-Publication Review, including the ability to support draft preview before publication; support pre-publication checks for formatting, links, metadata, accessibility, translation, and user experience; and allow reviewers to validate content before it goes live. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-30 | Content Manager Coordination and Training | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Content Manager Coordination and Training, including the ability to provide training materials and documented guidance for content managers and Content Providers; support coordination practices across distributed content teams; and provide standard templates, checklists, or job aids for content maintenance. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-31 | EOE Web Services team Role Support | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver EOE Web Services team Role Support, including the ability to support a future operating model that reduces unnecessary publishing bottlenecks; help the Web Services team focus on technical guidance, UI/UX standards, accessibility, governance, and oversight; and document how Web Services team responsibilities will operate in the future model. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-32 | Accessibility Standards | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Accessibility Standards, including the ability to meet applicable Commonwealth accessibility standards and WCAG requirements (Refer to: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/americans-with-disabilities-act-ada-title-ii-digital-accessibility-information#accessibility-support-resources); support assistive technologies, keyboard navigation, color contrast, accessible forms, templates, and interaction patterns; and provide accessibility documentation or validation evidence required by DESE/EOE. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-33 | Accessibility Review Process | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Accessibility Review Process, including the ability to define when accessibility checks occur in the workflow; identify tools, methods, roles, and sign-off steps for accessibility review; and document accessibility review responsibilities before publication. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-34 | Document and Media Accessibility | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Document and Media Accessibility, including the ability to ensure documents and media are checked for accessibility before publication; track accessibility status for downloadable documents and media; and recommend remediation or governance practices for inaccessible documents or media. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-35 | Multilingual Strategy | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Multilingual Strategy, including the ability to define priority languages, translation methods, and multilingual navigation needs; support translated documents, language-version metadata, and multilingual content governance; and allow final priority languages to be confirmed by DESE/EOE during discovery. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-36 | Translation Quality Review | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Translation Quality Review, including the ability to include human review or validation where machine translation is used; support culturally appropriate, accurate, and consistent translations; and define translation quality responsibilities and review checkpoints. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-37 | Translation Synchronization | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Translation Synchronization, including the ability to identify when English source content changes; flag translated versions that require review, update, retirement, or republication; and support governance practices for maintaining synchronized language versions. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-38 | Responsive Design Across Devices | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Responsive Design Across Devices, including the ability to deliver responsive design across desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile devices; ensure forms, documents, reports, and key user journeys are usable on desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile devices; and validate responsive design through testing across common devices or screen sizes. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-39 | Contact Routing | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Contact Routing, including the ability to help users identify the correct DESE office, staff contact, support channel, or topic-based contact pathway; support contact information that is organized by topic or user need; and reduce misdirected inquiries through clearer contact routing. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-40 | End-User Support Flow | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver User Support Flow, including a clear search experience that helps users find the information they need; help reduce unnecessary calls, misdirected inquiries, and user confusion; and document users support pathways and escalation points. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-41 | Feedback Loop and Inquiry Management | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Feedback Loop and Inquiry Management, including the ability to make contact forms and inquiry pathways easy to find; support auto-generated confirmations after users submit questions or feedback; and support defined routing, tracking, and timely response handling for inquiries. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-42 | Analytics and KPIs | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Analytics and KPIs, including the ability to define KPIs for usability, search, accessibility, mobile performance, content quality, translation usage, engagement, task completion, downloads, external applicationss, 404 errors, and abandonment points; support tracking and reporting for approved KPIs; and recommend how KPI data should inform website improvement. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-43 | Analytics Instrumentation and Reporting | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Analytics Instrumentation and Reporting to support DESE’s evaluation of website and content performance, with capabilities such as user event tracking, aggregate usage metrics, user journey and path analysis, engagement and abandonment trends, and dashboard reporting. The Bidder should recommend an appropriate analytics approach and tools that align with applicable privacy, security, and governance requirements. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-44 | Continuous Improvement | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Continuous Improvement, including the ability to support ongoing improvement through analytics, user feedback, content reviews, governance meetings, search tuning, accessibility monitoring, translation review, and ROT cleanup; recommend a continuous improvement process after launch; and document how website performance should be reviewed against agreed KPIs. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-45 | Migration Requirements | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Migration Requirements, including the ability to support a migration approach to determine which content should be migrated, rewritten, consolidated, archived, redirected, retired, or handled separately; support migration planning that considers business ownership, content readiness, accessibility, translation, search, user impact, and stakeholder validation; and support clear migration disposition decisions for content, documents, media, pages, and related digital assets before migration begins. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-46 | Delivery Timeline and Migration Readiness | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Delivery Timeline and Migration Readiness, including the ability to complete Business Requirements Refinement, Solution Architecture Design, Implementation with a Prototype; and Data and Content Migration within the approved project timeline; identify which migration activities can occur within the timeline and which may continue later; and clearly document assumptions, dependencies, and risks that affect delivery or migration readiness. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-47 | Business Requirements Refinement | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Business Requirements Refinement, including the ability to refine business, functional, UX, accessibility, multilingual, search, analytics, content, governance, and validation requirements during discovery; document refined requirements in a format DESE can review and approve; and identify assumptions, dependencies, risks, and open decisions during refinement. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-48 | Personas and Journey Mapping | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Personas and Journey Mapping, including the ability to assess users cohorts and recommend personas or journey maps; define workflows, navigation paths, and content organization approaches based on user needs; and validate personas or journeys with DESE stakeholders or representative users. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-49 | Stakeholder Review and Validation | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Stakeholder Review and Validation, including the ability to include DESE business users in review and validation activities; include representative external user groups where applicable; and use validation results to refine workflows, designs, content decisions, and usability. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-50 | Collaborative Design and User Engagement | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Collaborative Design and User Engagement, including the ability to support collaborative design activities with representative user groups; use engagement feedback to validate usability, accessibility, content clarity, and key journeys; and recommend how users engagement can inform ongoing improvement before or after launch. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-51 | Benchmarking and Design Inspiration | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Benchmarking and Design Inspiration, including the ability to review public-sector and education website benchmarks identified by DESE or the assessment; use benchmarking to inform design, IA, content organization, accessibility, and service delivery recommendations; and avoid direct replication while applying relevant best practices. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-52 | School and District Profiles Design Alignment | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver alignment to DESE's School and District Profiles, including the ability to consider relevant Profiles modernization design direction; adapt applicable design patterns while recognizing that related applications and the DESE website may use different technical stacks; and support consistent public-facing look and feel across DESE digital experiences. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-53 | Massachusetts Design System Alignment | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Massachusetts Design System Alignment, including the ability to align the user interface with the Massachusetts Design System; customize approved components for DESE needs; and maintain consistency through reusable components, design patterns, or a component library. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-54 | AI Readiness and Future Enablement | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver AI Readiness and Future Enablement, including the ability to support future readiness by helping DESE organize content in a structured, governed, and reusable way; support future enhancements for improved search, content reuse, analytics, and potential AI-enabled capabilities where approved; and acknowledge that AI implementation is not part of the current scope unless separately reviewed and approved by DESE/EOE. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-55 | Security and Compliance | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver Security and Compliance, including the ability to comply with applicable Commonwealth security, privacy, accessibility, procurement, records, and technology requirements; align with applicable EOE/EOTSS policies and guidance referenced in the RFQ; and provide documentation or evidence needed for security and compliance review. | |
| FALSE | |||
| BR-56 | External Application Governance | The Bidder confirms whether it can deliver External Application Governance, including the ability to support governance for external applications, including validity, appropriateness, approvals, and ongoing monitoring. (Refer to: https://www.mass.gov/policy-advisory/website-domain-policy); provide clear user context when users navigate to external applications or third-party systems; and support application checking, ownership, and review practices for external applications. | FALSE |
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