4.5 Website special-purpose documents identified as such
The New Zealand Web Standards 2.0 were released in March 2009 and replace the previous version, the New Zealand Government Web Standards 1.0 (below). See Meeting the standards for more information.
The Standard
4.5 Any document, content and/or forms/applications on an agency web site that is deemed a special-purpose document (as defined in the Glossary of key concepts) must state that:
- the document/content/application is a special-purpose document, and
- why it is a special-purpose document
and have no ambiguity as to what part thereof on the web site (i.e., document, content) is special-purpose.
Guide to this standard
A special-purpose document should not imply exclusion of users who are outside of the specialist audience for the document, or who do not have the tools to make sense of the document. The specialist audience qualification can be on the basis of a specialist tool(s) to present and/or make sense of the data (e.g., an Excel spreadsheet with modelling macros). In this case, if the underlying data is intended for (not excluded from) public view, the agency is expected to provide an alternative means for users to access the data in a logical presentation format. This can be achieved via various means such as providing contact details (i.e., phone, fax, email, online form for request submissions) for users to request the data, and in a particular the desired presentation “view”. Such details can then be sent out to users who have submitted such requests. Another alternative is providing accessible online applications, which present the data online, subject to one or more user selectable criteria. This eliminates or reduces the need for specialist presentation/modelling tools to be present on the client device.
Rationale for this standard
One of the principal foundations of the purpose for the New Zealand Web Standards is to provide economical and equitable access to information. This applies to all information the NZ government wishes to make available to the public. Correspondingly, it is important to minimise any reasons for excluding information from being accessible to all members of the public, as much as feasibly possible.
