CMS Key Selection Criteria

1. The firm we chose had to be able to work efficiently and seamlessly with iMIS, our association management system, so that the new web site would allow us to provide special member services and offer member-only content.

2. The firm we chose had to be skilled in the development of accessible and usable websites.   Based on conversations with in-house accessibility experts, our chosen development guidelines were the level II priorities of the Website Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

3. The firm we chose had to have experience working with not-for-profit organizations and/or associations.   It was important to work with a firm that understood the unique positioning of this market, as opposed to a firm that was more strongly accustomed to working with corporate clients.

4. The firm had to produce a design able to accommodate a very information-rich page layout.

5. The firm had to produce a design for the homepage and all ALA-only pages, and designs for a small strip of color/logo/small navigation for the top/bottom of division pages.

6. We required all designs to have a white background color with no background images, watermarks, textures, etc.   All designs had to use the standard ALA red, white, and blue, with black text.

7. We required that the CMS provide adequate capacity and workflow controls.

8. We required the use of Microsoft SQL as the database server to leverage our investments in software and training, and to ease the integration between the web and association management system databases.