CLF for the Internet - Navigation and Format

Guideline 6.1

Guidelines are not mandatory with respect to this policy but are provided to help institutions carry out government policy efficiently and effectively.

Rationale

Effective design results from careful consideration of several elements: colour, space, imagery, typography and layout. While Web technologies offer new opportunities for creativity, there are distinct benefits to be gained in communication, identification, navigation and content through standardization of some design elements. When applied across a large group of related Web sites, design standards increase visual recognition by end-users and lead to stronger associations between various GoC institutions.

In keeping with good design principles, the common look and feel Web page layout guidelines observe practices developed to maintain consistent, professional and highly cognitive relationships between all elements on each Web page.

Interpretation

Effective use of space is crucial to good information design. Effective use of white space in the left-hand column, along with a fixed width for content space, reinforces visual recognition of GoC sites. Consistent use of labels, line width, Web page layout, etc., will further enhance visual recognition of GoC sites and make it easy for users to locate exactly what they are looking for. Carefully coded Cascading Style Sheets are the most efficient means of achieving this standard, but simply coded tables may also be used to establish placement of elements.

Best Practices

Layout and presentation

Once a majority of users use browsers that support CSS-2, the following style sheet techniques should be used to control layout and presentation.

1. Use style sheets for text formatting rather than converting text to images.
   For example, stylized text on a colored background can be created with style sheets instead of as an image. This provides flexibility for people to view the text in a form that is most readable to them including magnified, in a particular color combination such as white on black, or in a particular font.
2. Use style sheets rather than invisible or transparent images to force layout.
3. Use style sheets instead of deprecated presentation elements and attributes that control visual presentation (elements {BASEFONT, CENTER, FONT, S, STRIKE, and U}. attributes {"align," "background," "bgcolor," "color," and "face"}. Authors are encouraged to use elements (such as STRONG, EM, H1, H2, ABBR, etc.) that add structure to documents.

Until then tables (to control layout) and bit-mapped text (for special text effects) may be used with alternative pages as necessary. http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/19980624txt.htm

Use Cascading Style Sheets only where the CSS techniques in question are known to have adequate browser support. Each new release of the major graphical browsers include more and better support for the CSS guideline. Many CSS commands especially for font effects, simple margins etc., have been well supported since level 4 graphical browsers. More advanced CSS support is being developed. CSS markup should be used to replace the deprecated <FONT> tag in any case.

Following these 6 steps should minimize the need for testing multiple platform / browser combinations and will ensure your content is served.

1. Design to the W3C Priority 1 and 2 Checkpoints and CLF Standards.
2. Validate pages to HTML 4.01 Transitional as a minimum.
3. Choose colours from the 216 web-safe colours list.
4. Use style sheets.
5. Test pages in a browser with style sheets disabled.
6. When a client notifies you of an issue regarding access to content, then test against the specific issue and improve or solve it.

The following CLF standards have both navigation and format and official languages implications. Their navigation and format characteristics are described below. The Official Languages considerations are fully described in Section 7, Official Languages.

Rationale

Just as government telephone numbers across the country are easily recognized by the '9' at the front of the prefix, the CLF standard to adopt a single domain name seeks to establish a similar identifier for GoC on the Internet. Domain names are vital to end-users. The domain name is the highest level reference to an individual site. If they know the exact domain name, users can effectively 'direct dial' to the information they want. In addition to acting as gateways to information and services, Web sites are key elements of marketing, promotional and information materials. A common domain name will further enhance federal identity, presence and visibility.

Bringing all GoC sites into a single domain will improve public recognition and make it easier for individuals to remember domain names they use on a regular basis. The standardization may also increase their chances of finding a site they have not previously visited. Informal surveys suggest Canadians are beginning to associate the gc.ca domain with the GoC.

Rationale

Welcome Pages are key to initial communication, identification and navigation on all GoC Web sites, and must therefore be designed to facilitate these functions. The standard single screen size ensures all necessary elements are viewable without scrolling and provides immediate access to the full content of any Welcome Page. While the centre area of any Welcome Page is left open for customisation to suit the needs of the institution (or its programs and services), standardization of the screen size and placement of mandatory elements will enhance visual consistency across all GoC sites.

Rationale

Standards for the size, placement and prominence of the "Canada" wordmark and FIP institutional signatures at the initial point of entry to GoC sites (the Welcome Page), and on all additional Web pages, foster visual recognition of individual institutions and increases the recognition of their links to the GoC. Consistent use of standard federal identifiers will ensure any area of any site can be easily identified as belonging to the Government of Canada, and will indicate that the information has been provided by a GoC institution. FIP identifiers also serve to assure users that the information is being appropriately used in the intended context.