Standards Compliance

This page details our general specification for Websites and Intranets. It satisfies the United Kingdom's e-Government Interoperability Framework and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, as revised.

MKDoc can be used to create web sites which comply with e-GIF v2.0 however there is not yet support for everything required by e-GMS v3.0 for Web Sites.

Public Functionality

The website shall be accessible via all browsers. Javascript, Java and Microsoft specific extensions shall not be required to access the site content.

The website must have a consistent format, controlled with templates, and shall provide the following:

Documents
All documents shall be valid HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0 Transitional or Strict. All documents shall comply with W3C WAI Double-A or better. All documents shall be encoded to Unicode / UTF-8.
Site Structure
Documents shall be hierarchically related to each other. All documents, apart from the home page, must have a parent document and may have as many child and sibling documents as required.
Document URLs / URIs
Document URLs shall not use query strings (e.g. http://example.com/document?id=123). All documents must have URLs / URIs which comply with the UK Government website filename conventions, i.e. they should be lower-case US-ASCII, and the only allowed punctuation is the dash character ([a-z] [0-9] [-]).
Navigation
All documents shall have dynamically generated navigation consisting of the following elements:
  • A standard navigation menu.
  • Breadcrumb trail navigation bar.
  • Child document listing.
  • Sibling document listing.
Search
All documents should have a search input form for conducting site searches. The search facility should work for documents in any language and character set.
Sitemap
All documents shall be linked to and from a sitemap. The sitemap shall be dynamically generated and reflect changes to the site in real time.
Metadata
All documents shall have associated Dublin Core metadata and this should be presented in one or more of the following ways:
  • XHTML / HTML metadata in the document <head>.
  • In an associated XML file.
  • In an associated RDF / XML file.

Administrator Functionality

All content must be editable via a web interface: this interface shall comply with W3C WAI 1.0 Single-A and W3C ATAG 1.0.

Javascript, Java and Microsoft specific extensions shall not be required to manage the site content.

Standards

Compliance with the following standards is mandatory.

W3C Standards

Dublin Core Standards

UK Government Standards

Document Links

HTML 4.01
HTML 4.01
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/
XHTML 1.0
XHTML 1.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/
Cascading Style Sheets, level 1
Cascading Style Sheets, level 1
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1
Cascading Style Sheets, level 2
Cascading Style Sheets, level 2
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10/
Recording qualified Dublin Core metadata in HTML meta elements
Recording qualified Dublin Core metadata in HTML meta elements
http://dublincore.org/documents/dcq-html/
Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML
Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML
http://dublincore.org/documents/dc-xml-guidelines/
Expressing Qualified Dublin Core in RDF / XML
Expressing Qualified Dublin Core in RDF / XML
http://dublincore.org/documents/dcq-rdf-xml/
e-Government Interoperability Framework
The UK e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF).
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/egif.asp
e-Government Metadata Standard
The UK e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS).
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/metadata.asp
e-GIF v2.0
Outlines the UK government policy and specifications to create seamless interoperability across public sector systems and connecting private sector systems.
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/egif_document.asp?docnum=201
e-GMS v3.0 for Web Sites
Metadata, web sites, information management, local standard, e-GMS, version 3, v3.0
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/metadata_document.asp?docnum=806
Government Category List documents
UK Government subject category metadata documents.
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/gcldocuments.asp
This document was last modified on 2004-08-09 11:24:15.
MKDoc Ltd., 31 Psalter Lane, Sheffield, S11 8YL, UK.
Copyright © 2001-2005 MKDoc Ltd.