1 Application

1.1 Effective date

1.1.1 This Standard is effective 1 July 2019 and replaces the Web Usability Standard 1.2.

1.2 Mandated organisations

1.2.1 Every Public service department or non-public service department in the State Services (‘Agency’) is directed by Cabinet [CAB Min (03) 41/2B] to apply this Standard.

1.3 Scope

1.3.1 The requirements in Section 2 (Requirements for public facing websites) apply to every public facing website (‘Website’) produced or maintained, in part or in whole, by the Agency.

1.3.2 The requirements in Section 3 (Requirements for all websites) apply to every public facing and internally facing website (‘Website’) produced or maintained, in part or in whole, by the Agency.

1.4 Assessment and reporting

1.4.1 Each Agency must be prepared, when notified, to:

• assess and report on its conformance with this Standard, and
• in the case of non-conformance with this Standard, submit a risk assessment and management plan regarding any areas of non-conformance.

2 Requirements for public facing websites

2.1 Government identity

2.1.1 The Website’s home page must include the name(s) and/or logo(s) of the New Zealand Government organisation(s) primarily responsible for the Website.

2.1.2 The Website’s home page must include a visible link to Govt.nz (www.govt.nz).

2.1.3 The link to Govt.nz on the Website’s home page should use a suitable all-of-government logo approved for use on NZ government websites.

2.2 Contact information

2.2.1 The Website must include or link to information (‘Contact Information’) for obtaining help related to the Website or contacting the New Zealand government organisation responsible for it.

2.2.2 A link to the Contact Information must be visible on the Website’s home page, and the link’s text must clearly indicate that its target is the contact information for the website.

2.2.3 The Contact Information must include:

• the address of an email account that is regularly monitored by the Website’s responsible organisation
• the telephone number for each call centre that supports a service provided by the Website, and
• a regularly monitored postal address.

2.2.4 The Contact Information should include:

• the number of a monitored telephone line
• a physical street address, if applicable, and
• a link to the New Zealand Relay Service (NZ Relay) for people who are deaf, hearing-impaired, deaf-blind, or speech-impaired.

2.3 Copyright

2.3.1 The Website must include or link to a general copyright statement (‘General Copyright Statement’).

2.3.2 A link to the General Copyright Statement must be visible on the Website’s home page, and the link’s text must clearly indicate that its target is the General Copyright Statement for the Website.

2.3.3 The General Copyright Statement must:

• clearly indicate that it applies to the Website (e.g. ‘Copyright material on service.govt.nz and agency.govt.nz is protected by copyright owned by the Ministry on behalf of the Crown.’)
• state that copyright material on the Website is protected by copyright, and set out the licensing terms under which the Website’s material can be re-used by others.

2.3.4 If the Website contains third party copyright material, the Website must state, either within the General Copyright Statement and/or within or near to each item of third party copyright material:

• the source and copyright status of such material in a way that avoids ambiguity as to which content items are subject to third party copyright
• that the Website’s re-use licence does not apply to material that is subject to third party copyright, and
• that permission to re-use third party copyright material cannot be given by the New Zealand government organisation responsible for the Website.

2.3.5 The General Copyright Statement should state that the general licensing terms do not apply to material on the Website that is covered by the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981.

2.3.6 The New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL) should be applied when selecting the licensing terms that apply to copyright material on the Website.

2.4 Privacy

2.4.1 The Website must include or link to a privacy statement (‘Privacy Statement’).

2.4.2 A link to the Privacy Statement must be visible on the Website’s home page, and the link’s text must clearly indicate that its target is the Privacy Statement for the Website.

2.4.3 The Privacy Statement must:

• clearly indicate the scope of the statement and that it applies to the Website (e.g. ‘This privacy notice applies to personal information collected on ministry.govt.nz and agency.govt.nz.’)
• identify the circumstances in which personal information is collected, by whom it is held (e.g. the responsible organisation and/or third parties) and any choices users have as to whether such information is collected in the first place
• state the uses to which collected personal information may be put by the collecting organisation and the circumstances in which it may be disclosed
• note any collection and use of statistical information, including users’ IP addresses
• include a statement that cookies are used, if that is the case, and a brief description of their purpose
• explain users’ rights to request access to or to correct personal information held by the collecting organisation, and provide contact details for such purposes.

3 Requirements for all websites

3.1 Links to non-HTML files

3.1.1 With the exception of links on archived web pages, each link to a non-HTML file must be accompanied by information indicating the file’s format and size.

3.2 Printable web pages

3.2.1 The main content of each web page, with the exception of archived web pages, must be printable in its entirety on standard sheets of paper.

3.2.2 The following types of web page content should not be printable:

• primary content navigation
• secondary content navigation
• thematic or decorative banner
• breadcrumbs
• search form.

3.2.3 A web page’s text content should be printable by default as black text on a white background.

4 Glossary

Archived web page

A web page:

• whose main content is available for reference purposes but otherwise neither maintained nor updated
• whose main content is clearly marked as archived, and
• that includes accessible instructions on how a user can request an accessible version of its content.

Home page

A website’s main landing or entry web page. For many websites, this is the web page at the root domain or subdomain level, e.g. http://ministry.govt.nz/ or http://site.ministry.govt.nz/. For some websites, e.g. single web page applications, the home page is the initial state of the web application.

Internally facing

A website or web page that can be accessed only by individuals who are employed by a New Zealand government Public service department or non-public service department in the State Services.

Web pages that are part of an intranet are considered to be internally facing.

Main content

The content specific to a web page and directly related to that web page’s principal topic or functionality.

Must

As defined in IETF RFC2119, indicates an absolute requirement.

Public facing

A website or web page that can be accessed by individuals who are not employed by a New Zealand government Public service department or non-public service department in the State Services.

This includes a website or web page behind a login authentication mechanism that controls access by users outside the responsible New Zealand government organisation.

Should

As defined in IETF RFC2119, indicates a recommended course of action that there may be valid reasons under certain conditions to ignore, the full implications of which must be understood and carefully weighed before doing so.

Should not

As defined in IETF RFC2119, indicates a course of action that is not recommended but that may be acceptable or even useful to take under certain conditions, the full implications of which must be understood and carefully weighed before doing so.

Website

A coherent collection of one or more related web pages that together provide common use or functionality. It includes static web pages, dynamically generated web pages, and web applications.

Note: … Websites may be composed of smaller sub-sites, each of which can be considered to be an individual website. For example, a website may include an online shop, an area for each department within the organization, a blog area, and other areas that may each be considered to be a website.

Note that this definition of website includes web applications, web services, and single page applications.

A department’s corporate website (e.g. agency.govt.nz) may comprise multiple sections (e.g. agency.govt.nz/service-a and agency.govt.nz/service-b) owned and/or administered by organisationally distinct units within the department. For the purposes of this Standard, these individual sections may be considered separate websites.

Note that collections of one or more web pages located at different fourth-level domains that belong to the same third-level domain, e.g. projectA.agency.govt.nz and serviceB.agency.govt.nz, constitute separate websites.

Web page

A non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI using HTTP plus any other resources that are used in the rendering or intended to be rendered together with it by a user agent.

[Note 1] Although any ‘other resources’ would be rendered together with the primary resource, they would not necessarily be rendered simultaneously with each other.

[Note 2] For the purposes of conformance with these guidelines, a resource must be ‘non-embedded’ within the scope of conformance to be considered a Web page.

[Example 1] A Web resource including all embedded images and media.

[Example 2] A Web mail program built using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX). The program lives entirely at http://example.com/mail, but includes an inbox, a contacts area and a calendar. Links or buttons are provided that cause the inbox, contacts, or calendar to display, but do not change the URI of the page as a whole.

[Example 3] A customizable portal site, where users can choose content to display from a set of different content modules.

[Example 4] When you enter ‘http://shopping.example.com/’ in your browser, you enter a movie-like interactive shopping environment where you visually move around in a store dragging products off of the shelves around you and into a visual shopping cart in front of you. Clicking on a product causes it to be demonstrated with a specification sheet floating alongside. This might be a single-page Web site or just one page within a Web site.

This definition of web page includes web applications, web services, and single page applications.