Blogzilla - A web design oriented weblog by Izilla Web Development, Newcastle and Sydney, NSW Australia

Objectives

secureNSW is a joint project for the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet’s Counter Terrorism & Disaster Recovery Directorate and the NSW Police Force’s Counter Terrorism & Special Tactics Command. The intention of the secureNSW website is to be a one-stop-shop for counter terrorism arrangements, legislation and initiatives within NSW. While some of this information was already available online, it has historically been dispersed across various agency websites.

Design requirements for the project included the creation of a whole-of-government counter terrorism brand, with the website being the first communications output of that brand. Compliance with the NSW Government GCIO Website Style Directive and requirements set down for meta data standard AGLS (Australian Government Locator Service) were mandatory to the site development. The site also needed to be able to support engaging delivery of content.

Due to the number of site authors within the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet and the NSW Police Force it was also essential that the site offer simple and efficient maintenance of content to content owners with a range of technical abilities.

Target Audience

Primary target audiences for the site include NSW community groups and businesses, and also the broader community seeking information on NSW counter terrorism initiatives, related legislation and news.

The Solution

Whist other government departments have disseminated content of this nature, the secureNSW website is unique in the following: it is a stand-alone site (rather than a section on a departmental site), the site is jointly managed and run by two agencies and has technical capacity for non-technical people to easily incorporate video, audio and RSS. Tools that have been used within the fi rst iteration of the site include RSS Feeds, video and audio with forums and additional components to follow in subsequent iterations.

The GCIO directive outlines requirements such as page layout, menu and navigation structure, browser compatibility, HTML and CSS compliance, accessibility, meta data requirements and other parts of the site such as the sitemap and search functions. In addition to complying with the directive, optimal usability and accessibility has been achieved. The site is compliant with XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS 2, WAI Priority 2 (AA) compliance for accessibility, and for mobile access.

Izilla’s Cognition Enterprise Content Management which uses granular security for content ownership and publishing workfl ows has been implemented for maintenance of all content sections.

Reaching Target Audience

Usability and accessibility were the focus for the site’s overall design and functionality. In anticipation of periods of high load, the site uses a very light "footprint" which also incorporates the mandatories of the style and accessibility directives.

Site visitors can navigate quickly to relevant information using the simple site structure and accurate searching. Other tools included used within the site include RSS Feeds, the inclusion of the Places of Mass Gathering Self-Assessment tool, and support for embedded video and audio.

Innovation in Interactive Media

A key feature of the site is the way in which factual and potentially alarming subject matter is presented in an approachable way. Tools such as audio, video and links to external sources using RSS feeds make the secureNSW website the central source for counter terrorism information in NSW. The site utilises the digital asset management capabilities of Cognition ECM.gov to publish vital information in numerous mediums.

Creative Impact and Aesthetics

The secureNSW website represents a NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet & NSW Police Force joint initiative. As such, the design included the creation of a whole-of-government brand, with the website being the first communications output of that brand.

The design is one of the project’s strengths – it met the GCIO directive, yet produced a very individual and engaging site design. The design and branding also presents a very serious and potentially alarming topic in a reassuring style.

Unique design considerations for the project included the requirement to use both the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet & the NSW Police Force logos as well as the secureNSW branding and the ability to visually reinforce key messages within the site. These have been achieved without the site appearing cluttered or confusing.

Technical Expertise

The secureNSW website has been developed using Izilla’s Cognition ECM.gov enterprise content management system. Cognition ECM.gov allows for multiple authors from multiple locations.

Cognition ECM.gov uses Microsoft ASP.NET (Framework 2.0, C#) as the software platform. In addition to this the system uses XML and Microsoft SQL Server 2000.
Cognition ECM.gov is functionally rich, allowing authors to manage content, RSS feeds, features, images and related information. It is also designed to give non-technical website managers the ability to manage web content.

Usability and Accessibility

Accessibility is critical to the secureNSW website. Standards compliant, semantic XHTML, with presentational and behavioural separation has been used to ensure that the site is accessible and usable to the largest number of devices and user agents. The content and structure has been marked-up in a logical manner, creating a clear hierarchy.

A simple "Skip to Content" link provided as the first element on the page, allows visitors using nonvisual user agents to skip directly to a page’s content. For users with visual browsers, who may have motor impairment, a focus state has been created for all links (and form inputs in appropriate browsers) to improve usability when navigating using a keyboard.

For user agents that support it, behavioural-separated Javascript has also been included to give users the flexibility of changing the size of the text of the whole site (in 10% increments) for easier readability. Cookies have been utilised to remember the user’s preferred text size setting while browsing the site.

Special Characteristics

The secureNSW website is also intended to be a primary source of information in the event of an incident. If an incident should occur in NSW, the site will offer frequently updated incident details under a high traffic load.

Related Links

• SecureNSW.gov.au
• Cognition ECM.gov