Updated Web Guide released
- 14
- Feb
I’m pleased to announce the release of a revamped and updated Web Guide. The purpose of the Web Guide is to help agencies manage their online presence and understand their relevant legal and policy obligations in this space. The site replaces the previous Web Publishing Guide, which was launched in May 2007.
The Web Guide contains the latest up-to-date advice in areas such as accessibility, Government 2.0, copyright, freedom of information and many more. We’ve also tried out some new things with the site, like our new page listing various PDF readers, including free and open source options. This is meant to be something agencies can link to from their own sites where appropriate rather than pointing their users to a single PDF reader application.
In updating the Web Guide we have tried to consult as widely as possible on the redevelopment. We worked closely with a range of agencies to form the site’s new content. We reached out to our mailing lists and other relevant contacts to run focus groups about the site’s future.
We also tried to consult with you, the public, wherever we could – before its content was rolled into the blog you’re reading now, my team ran a Web Guide blog. We used that blog – and later, the AGIMO Blog – to discuss the progress of the site, including our design choices, the results of the focus groups and to release some the new content (particularly our Government 2.0 Primer) as soon as it was ready.
In a lot of ways, launching the updated Web Guide is only a first step. We’re already at work developing more content to add to the site – for example, we know that agencies are interested in new guidelines about how to apply the mandatory Australian Government branding to mobile applications. From here, we will work to develop new guidance while also keeping the existing content current. I’d appreciate any comments on the updated Guide or suggestions for new content you may have to help us along the way.
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Great work Peter. It’s great the guide has its own domain.
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I think the new Web Guide will prove really useful. It’s handy to have something authoritative like this that people can point to, particularly for smaller agencies. It will help people gain the trust they need from internal stakeholders to try new and creative things, especially around Gov2.0 and online consultation initiatives etc.
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Well done team; concise, plain english, easy to scan through and very useful.
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Congratulations on your revised guide. It makes interesting reading.
It’s a shame that RSS was not a mandatory topic as it can still be a pain to cover new information on many Government websites.
One question is there a period of grace when these guidelines come into force or are they all current as of now?
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Thanks John, Chris, Reid and Neil for your comments and support – our team have put a lot of effort into the updated Guide.
I do see a time not too far off when RSS and change alerts for all content types will be standard practice. We have not approached mandating it (and some other areas) yet because we need to focus on get all the existing madated areas well implemented across government for example compliance with accessibility requirements and the transition to WCAG 2.
This is a redesign, revamping and improvement of the previous version of the Web Publishing Guide – the requirements in this version are broadly the same as they were before. In fact no ‘mandatory’ requirements have changed – so specifically answering your question – they are current as of now.
Peter
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HI guys. Just wondering where or when I may find the slides from the recent PDF Accessibility seminars held in Canberra.
(and you may want to have a look at this form as my comment was lost after not filling in the captcha:)
Cheers.
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Hi Sebastian – the PDF slides should be available soon, you can find more information on our post about the training sessions.
Apologies for any difficulties with the CAPTCHA — what you describe is a known issue, and something we’ll look to resolve in the future.
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Hi
This is a great idea. I would like my students to be involved in some of the usability testing if this is possible. I run a website design training course and the usability testing would really help them out. Let me know if this possible.
Kind regards
Scott
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