These web standards and guidelines need to be followed in order to achieve high quality in the web development sector and serve as unified industry benchmarks for evaluating Internet websites.
Applying these guidelines neither obstructs the presentation of the individual identity and character of the individual government website nor limits creativity and originality in design, layout or functionalities. The guidelines are flexible enough to preserve the right of each agency to be able to tint its website with its specific colors, logos and character to sustain its personality and theme.
However, the purpose behind the standards and guidelines is to introduce a uniform look and feel among government websites and to ensure that these websites are well designed according to known standards. This work is beneficial for all government agencies and can be used throughout the web development and maintenance processes to guarantee quality product and services.
The specific objectives that can be satisfied are:
- Allowing the public, businesses, and visitors to easily access and utilize all information on any government owned website.
- Maintaining and presenting a common look and feel and a common navigational framework on all Lebanese Government Websites.
- Reduction of time and cost involved in setting up government websites.
- Provision of essential functionalities and citizen services expected from government websites.
- Avoidance of duplication of efforts and redundant spending related to website development.
- Systematic and tightened security measures and standards on all government websites and portals.
While the results expected to be achieved from applying the pursued standards and design guidelines can be summarized as follows:
- Professional and systematic outlook of government websites
- Easier and faster citizen access to government information and services
- Minimal learning burden and efforts on part of the citizen seeking government services
- Reduction of cost and duplication of efforts in developing websites
- Faster implementation of government web portals and web services
- Higher user satisfaction levels
- Improved citizen acceptance and adoption of government services and regulations
- Facilitation of e-Government implementation and improvement of service delivery by paving the way for migrating the Lebanese public websites from the UN e-Government Stage I and II (Emerging and Enhanced Presence) to Stage III, IV (Interactive and Transactional Presence) and beyond.
The herein presented Standards and Guidelines cover websites design, layout, look and feel,
usability, functionality, security and
accessibility requirements and specifications of the official websites. The goal is to enhance and standardize the citizen’s access to government information and services through efficient, productive and easy to use government websites that share a common set of standards and functionalities.
The purpose is to introduce enhancements to the following areas of web development: website design, interoperability, documentation, implementation, look and feel, operational, performance, security,
disaster recovery, and business continuity.
The Standards and Guidelines
should be accompanied by a Webmasters Design Toolkit aiming to assist the developers and webmasters in developing their websites in accordance with these Standards and Guidelines. The standards and guidelines along with the toolkit
should be published on a dedicated website.