Attachment J-001-B - Senate Web Design Guide.pdf

Senate Web Design Guide

Contents

Overview

Purpose of this Guide Compliance is Mandatory Future Updates Questions or Concerns

General Guidelines

Approved CMS Plugins and Design Functionality Design and Functionality Regulatory, Senate Rules and Policies Compliance

Design Requirements

Design Mockups Site Design Related Documents and Tasks User Data Collection Website Analytics Social Media Integration Privacy Concerns Requesting other integrations Requirements Gathering Process Accessibility Usability Helpful Resources

Overview

Purpose of this Guide

This document provides the necessary information for a United States Senate Office (“Office” or “Offices”), and/or its third-party Contractor, to design and maintain web sites within the Senate web environment. It is divided into chapters covering different aspects of design and includes guidelines and available/permitted resources, for the successful creation of contractually compliant, high-quality Senate websites.

Compliance is Mandatory

This document is an addendum to the Website Development Contract, 2026-R-004. Failure to comply and meet the requirements set forth in this guide will be grounds for default and termination under the Contract. Contractors are expected to adhere to the guidelines set forth in the latest version of this guide when scoping, proposing, or executing any task order awarded under the contract.

Future Updates

Over the course of the contract, as the design environment, guidelines and tools change, so too will the Senate Web Design Guide. As such, it is the Contractor’s responsibility to check the Design Guide for pertinent changes that may impact the design and maintenance of Senate websites. Contractors shall download and review the latest version of this guide at the start of each web design project.

Although the SAA will make every effort to inform the vendors of significant changes to the Senate Web Design Guide, it is exclusively the contractor’s responsibility to review the document for changes, particularly when submitting a proposal for a task order, as well as during the website design and development engagement. Task order proposals that do not adhere to the Senate Design Guide will not be presented to Senate offices.

Questions or Concerns

Contractors should contact the SAA if they have any questions or concerns about this guide or impending updates.

General Guidelines

Web designers working on behalf of an Office are encouraged to be innovative and creative when meeting the requirements of a Senate Office. This document is not intended to make uniform all website designed under this contract. Upon request from the Senate Office, or its Contractor (with the permission of the office), the SAA will provide Contractors with a base template of the Senate-approved CMS applications that include approved plugins, and other configurations required to design a Senate website. Currently, the only approved CMS application is WordPress. Contractors are not expected to provide custom website programming or plugin development.

Approved CMS Plugins and Design Functionality

WordPress, the Senate-approved CMS, is pre-configured with all plugins, themes and design functionality approved for use within the Senate network. However, some plugins may require activation by the SAA for use during site design. Refer to the internal SAA site for how to make such requests for activation.

Plugins or themes can only be installed by the SAA, and Contractors must work within the available toolset. All designs for the Senate website must be provided using approved plugins included in Attachment J-001-A Senate Web Development Guide. The SAA will remove any unauthorized design functionality added to a site either in development or production, and the Contractor responsible for adding such design functionality will be required to redesign and/or redevelop areas of the site affected by such removals at no additional cost to the Office.

The SAA will purchase and maintain licenses for paid versions of plugins; thus, Contractors should never charge an office for the development or use of a plugin. Contractors must use SAA-provided plugin licenses for websites hosted on the Senate network.

Following contract award, the most up to date list of approved WordPress plugins will be posted on the internal SAA site. Additional plugins may be recommended to the SAA for an evaluation and security review of the plugin. Depending on the nature and complexity of the recommended plugin, the SAA may require up to six months to complete the review and render a final decision.

The SAA will update plugins for Senate office websites regularly and will continuously monitor for security concerns. Out-of-cycle updates will be applied as needed.

Design and Functionality

Unless otherwise directed by the Senate office, the Contractor shall develop websites that are intuitive, aesthetically pleasing, and meet the Office’s needs and preferences. The website should use modern responsive design principles and allow site visitors to easily navigate the website to find information or contact the Office regardless of the device used to do so. The design shall load efficiently and meet accessibility standards as defined in Section C.3.4.9 and have a consistent visual “brand” as directed or selected, by the office. All site components shall be presented in a way that maximizes accessibility and usability.

All coding used in website design should conform with Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) coding practices. The contractor should be aware and take steps to address the issues detailed in the OWASP Top 10. The contractor shall be responsible for remediation of any identified security flaws and the timeline for resolving issues will be based on the criticality as defined in by the U.S. Sergeant at Arms SOP for Cybersecurity.

Regulatory, Senate Rules and Policies Compliance

The Contractor shall adhere to all applicable Senate Rules and Policies regarding the design of websites (see Section C.3.4.6) – this includes rules or policies that don’t directly refer to websites, to which Senate offices are nevertheless bound. Upon identification of a design element that violates a Senate rule policy, the contractor will remediate that violation at no additional cost to the office.

Design Requirements

Design Mockups

All new and replacement website projects shall include a design approval phase. The Contractor will supply clickable, responsive mockups of the home page and at least one sub-page, and any other mockups requested by the Office.

Design elements such as color palettes, button shapes, curves, shadows, fonts, etc. shall be approved by the Office point of contact (“POC”) before additional, design-dependent web development can continue.

The Office will either approve the mockups or request any desired revisions. The Contractor should not begin building approval-dependent components of the website until the Office has given final approval of the mockups.

In addition to design mockups, upon request by the office, the Contractor shall furnish a text-based content scope/wireframe and/or a sitemap, for approval by the Office. This document should include a bulleted list of all navigation elements, content sections, forms, and features that will be included in the final website.

The Contractor shall copy the COR on all design documents, including revisions, upon submission to the Senate Office POC.

Site Design Related Documents and Tasks

Generally, the related tasks may include, but are not limited to:

• Site graphical design and style mock-up/composition, which typically includes mockups of the home page, inner content pages, form processing, and any special pages that require unique formatting or layout (including responsive views);

• A template/theme created from the approved design;

• A clickable HTML mockup addressing all elements of the approved project plan document;

• Applying the template/theme for use in development of the web pages;

• Browser testing;

• Search, links, and service testing;

• Rollout timeline and site launch; and,

• Site documentation and Training;

User Data Collection

All website correspondence form data must be transmitted via secure email to either a specified Office recipient or the Office’s constituent service system (“CSS”). Task Order proposal requests (“TOPRs”) will include relevant documentation when integration with the Office’s CSS is required.

Contractors are forbidden from transmitting or capturing any information about website users in any other manner.

For security reasons and to prevent caching of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), vendors are NOT to create preview/printable options for submission forms. Forms cannot be saved to the database or as a temp file with a GET command since the Senate’s CDN (Akamai) caches GET unique URI’s which could be exposed to subsequent users of the web form.

All web forms must include CAPTCHA.

Website Analytics

Adobe Analytics is the only approved Senate analytics tool and required for all Senate websites. Adobe Analytics provides detailed tracking of website statistics, by excluding search engines, web crawlers, and other robot traffic. This is accomplished by including unique JavaScript tagging code on each page of the website content, typically in the footer or near the bottom of each page. The JavaScript tagging code will be supplied by the SAA to each Contractor, office or committee.

Social Media Integration

Privacy Concerns

All postings to the Senate web site must abide by the Senate’s Internet Services Usage Rules and Policies, attached to this contract, https://www.senate.gov/usage/internetpolicy.htm, adopted by the Committee on Rules and Administration. All postings to the Senate web site must abide by the Senate Privacy Policy, https://www.senate.gov/general/ privacy.htm.

It is critical that a user’s privacy is never compromised as a result of interacting with a Senate website. To protect constituent privacy and prevent them from being the targets of political advertising, Contractors are prohibited from embedding any code, widget, JavaScript, API call, etc. from any third-party platforms.

Additionally, iFrames to servers or websites outside of the Senate network are not allowed and cannot be used on Senate websites.

In addition, Contractors shall not embed links to unapproved Office social media sites. Offices should not promote any “official” social media accounts they have established on unapproved third-party social media platforms.

The SAA has specific arrangements in place with certain social media platforms under which these platforms have agreed not to track Senate.gov visitors or any users who have arrived on their platform from a Senate.gov website.

Approved social media platforms

As of the publication of this guide, the approved social media platforms are:

1. Instagram

2. LinkedIn

3. YouTube

4. Facebook

5. Scribd

6. X

7. Eventbrite

Requesting other integrations

While a Contractor should never recommend to Offices that they integrate with or promote an unapproved social media network, occasionally an Office may request such an integration themselves. In such a case, Contractors should ask the Office to contact the COR and describe the integration they desire. The COR will consider the request in consultation with the Rules Committee and decide whether or not to issue a one-time dispensation for that Office’s specific use-case. The COR will inform the Contractor and the Office of the final decision.

Note: Approval to implement an unapproved social media platform for a single Office use case shall not be misconstrued as permission to install the unapproved feature in the future. Each Office request must receive approval before Contractors may install the feature on a new website.

Requirements Gathering Process

Requirements are gathered by the SAA via a standardized Requirements Questionnaire. The questionnaire asks Offices about the typical features common to most Senate websites (e.g. press releases, photo gallery, issues, constituent contact forms, etc.) and includes a freeform section where the Office can document any unique requirements not listed in the questionnaire.

The Office’s responses to the questionnaire will inform the creation of the TOPR (see Attachment J-003 Sample Task Order Proposal Request), which is distributed to Contractors upon final Office approval.

https://www.senate.gov/general/privacy.htm https://www.senate.gov/general/privacy.htm https://www.senate.gov/general/privacy.htm https://www.senate.gov/general/privacy.htm

This questionnaire will be updated as needed to reflect current technology and trends, and Contractors are encouraged to recommend improvements or revisions.

Accessibility

The Contractor shall ensure that all task order deliverables, including web pages, web forms, navigation elements, electronic documents, multimedia (e.g. images, videos, etc.), and other website features comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 794d) and the applicable regulations and technical standards in effect at the time of delivery, including the Revised 508 Standards (36 CFR Part 1194).

Where applicable, the Contractor shall also ensure conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II and the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards.

The Contractor shall use a Senate-provided tool to test and verify website accessibility and provide the results of the accessibility test to the Office, prior to launch.

Usability

Website usability standards shall encompass industry best practices, methodologies, and guidelines.

Helpful Resources

Section 508 Accessibility News: The Section 508 Update | Section508.gov W3C Accessibility Standards Overview | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C Digital Experience Usability – Digital.gov Usability Starter Kit – Digital.gov Helpful Checklists U.S. Senate: Internet Services and Technology Resources Usage Rules https://www.section508.gov/ https://www.section508.gov/blog/accessibility-news-the-section-508-Update/ https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/ https://www.gsa.gov/technology/government-it-initiatives/digital-experience https://digital.gov/topics/usability/ https://digital.gov/resources/digitalgov-user-experience-resources/digitalgov-user-experience-program-usability-starter-kit https://digital.gov/resources/checklist-of-requirements-for-federal-digital-services/ https://www.senate.gov/usage/internetpolicy.htm

Helpful Resources