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Guideline: About Us

Whole of Victorian Government ICT Guideline: About Us

Website Management Framework

Short Description

This guideline provides advice on implementing an About Us page as required by the Minimum Information Provision standard.

Identifier: WEB/GUIDE/01
Version No.: 2.0
Status: Approved
Date of effect: 21 August 2009
Next review date: 23 August 2010

Guideline: About Us - WEB/GUIDE/01

Overview

The Minimum Information Provision standard (WEB/STD/09) requires all websites to have an ‘About Us' page.  This guideline provides advice on how to write and structure an ‘About Us' page.

Rationale

The ‘About Us' page of a website provides a window into the department, agency or program to assist users to:

• understand the organisation and its relationship to the whole of government;
• understand its organisational structure, purpose and areas of responsibility;
• understand its legislative responsibilities and framework;
• identify employment and commercial opportunities; and
• identify potential scope for partnering or collaboration.

Audience

• Website Management Taskforce (WMT) Coordinators;
• Website administrators; and
• Content managers.

Steps

At a minimum, a website's ‘About Us' page should include the following information:

Overview

The overview section should:

• provide a clear understanding of the purpose of the organisation, program or thematic site;
• describe the organisational structure of the department or agency, including executive personnel and their areas of responsibility;
• describe key portfolio, business and project areas; and
• link to the relevant Ministers' pages (1).

Website owners may choose the title for this section.

Legislation

The legislation section should contain a list and associated summaries of:

• relevant Acts and Regulations administered by the department; and
• relevant Acts and legislation under which the department operates.

A link to the home page of the Victorian Legislation and Parliamentary Documents site should also be included.

Careers

The careers section:

• is particularly relevant to corporate sites;
• should contain any information or services that are relevant to people seeking employment in the Victorian Government;
• may be used to promote the organisation's desirability as an employer;
• must contain links to www.careers.vic.gov.au; and
• may be hyperlinked from the primary or utility navigation.

News centre

This guideline recognises that some departments and agencies provide additional resources for journalists – beyond links to ministerial press releases – in the form of a news centre.

The news centre:

• is particularly relevant to corporate sites;
• must contain links to ministerial press releases (2);
• may include links to departmental or agency releases, and any other information or resources that will assist journalists to rapidly find the information and contacts they need; and
• may be hyperlinked from the primary or utility navigation.

Publications

A list of publications, or a link to the list of publications, including key corporate documents (as described in the Minimum Information Provision standard), may be included in the About Us page.   See the Publications guideline for further details.

Contact Us

It is recommended that the About Us page contain:

1. Contact Us information; or
2. a link to a Contact Us page (3).

If including Contact Us information on the About Us page, the Contact Us element in the utility navigation (4) must link to the About Us page, preferably directly to the Contact Us section (5).

 

A comprehensive list of ‘About Us' page content items might include:

List of inclusions for an About Us page

Information type/section	Requirement	Corporate	Program/Issue	Thematic
Overview	Mission and vision statements – roles and responsibilities of the department, agency, program or issue	Yes	Yes	No
Overview	Purpose and objectives of the website	No	No	Yes
Overview	Policy framework, including links to key internal and external policy documents	Yes	Yes	No
Overview	Guiding policies – e.g. partners, linking, scope, topics	No	No	Yes
Overview	Corporate plan/plans	Yes	No	No
Overview	Current annual report	Yes	No	No
Overview	Description of the organisation structure, including an organisation chart with brief descriptions of main business areas or projects (and/or links to detailed descriptions)	Yes	Yes	No
Overview	Ministers' contact details and portfolios (6)	Yes	Yes	No
Overview	Tenders and contracts: general information and link to http://www.vgpb.vic.gov.au/	Yes	No	No
Overview	Glossary of terms particular to the areas of responsibility, program and/or issue	Yes	Yes	No
Overview	Information about, and links to, the corporate site of the department or agency that owns the site	Yes	Yes	Yes
Overview	Links to related organisations	No	Yes	No
Overview	Special features of the site	No	No	Yes
Legislation	List of the legislation (Acts and Regulations) under which the organisation operates List and descriptions of legislation managed by the organisation Link to the home page of the Victorian Legislation and Parliamentary Documents site.	Yes	Yes	No
Careers	Overview of types of employment opportunities offered by the organisation, including specific information about any programs – e.g. graduate and cadet programs	Yes	Yes	No
Careers	Access to current vacancies and the process for applications (in the case of a Thematic site it may be a link to the Corporate website)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Careers	Link to http://www.careers.vic.gov.au	Yes	Yes	Yes
News Centre	Link to ministerial media releases (7)	Yes	Yes	Yes
News Centre	Links to departmental and/or program media releases	Yes	Yes	Yes
News Centre	Information and resources for journalists, such as media contacts in the organisation, image library etc	Yes	Yes	Yes
Publications	List of publications (or link to)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Contact Us	‘Contact Us' information (or link to the ‘Contact Us' page)	Yes	Yes	Yes

Context

This guideline should be followed in conjunction with the relevant website's information architecture.  This is necessary to ensure that the content and structure of the ‘About Us' page is consistent with both the users' expectations and needs and the communication requirements of the department, agency and/or program.

It is recognised that while there is a basic level of information that should be provided to comply with the Minimum Information Provision standard, departments, agencies or site owners may wish to provide additional or more detailed information, or adjust the content structure to suit their needs.

Thematic sites may elect to emphasise the information design, or other features or functionality of the site, in lieu of organisation-based information.  However, these sites should still provide a link to the relevant corporate department or agency site to add credibility and increase citizen confidence.

References

Governing standard

• Minimum Information Provision (WEB/STD/09)

Governing requirement

• Websites must provide an  ‘About Us' page including descriptive information of the owner of the website

Related requirements

This guideline encompasses a number of aspects of the Minimum Information Provision standard, namely that websites will provide information including:

• A complete list of legislation under which the department, agency or program operates and a link to the Victorian Legislation and Parliamentary Documents website
• A complete list of legislation administered by the department/agency  and a link to the home page of the Victorian Legislation and Parliamentary Documents website
• The department‘s/agency's organisation structure
• A point of contact
• Specific contact details for the department or agency…
• Details of, or links to, the relevant Ministers' contact information and portfolio responsibilities
• A link to the Victorian Government Media Releases website
• A complete list of available publications and their access details
• A link to the department's/agency's corporate site
• Careers information

Related guidelines

• Publications (WEB/GUIDE/06)
• Contact Us (WEB/GUIDE/02)

Related policies and standards

• Consistent User Elements (WEB/STD/06)
• Information Architecture and Classification (WEB/STD/08)

Related resources

• None

Further Information

For further information please contact web.standards@dtf.vic.gov.au.

Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations

Corporate Website - Each department/agency has a single corporate website that describes the structure and functions of the department/agency. Examples: www.diird.vic.gov.au, www.police.vic.gov.au, www.epa.vic.gov.au

Primary navigation - A persistent menu that allows users to access or navigate to the primary areas of the website.

Program/Issue Website - A website that provides information or services on a particular campaign, program or issue. Examples: www.tenders.vic.gov.au, www.legionella.vic.gov.au

Thematic/Portal Website - A thematic website contains content focused on a particular topic. Example: www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au. A portal website presents information from diverse sources in a unified way, often providing outbound links for users to access further information. (8) Example: www.vic.gov.au.

Utility navigation - A collection of useful navigational elements placed consistently across all website pages within a site.

WMF - Website Management Framework.

WMT - Website Management Taskforce.  Each department and inner-budget agency (Environmental Protection Agency, State Revenue Office, VicRoads, and Victoria Police) maintains a WMT to manage their internal web activity and administer the WMF.

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Footnotes:

(1) Ministers' pages can be located via http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/ministers.html.

(2) Press releases can be located via http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/pages/media-releases-by-minister.html

(3) The Contact Us guideline (WEB/GUIDE/02) describes how to provide ‘Contact Us' information.

(4) The Consistent User Elements standard (WEB/STD/06) requires a ‘Contact Us' link in the utility navigation.

(5) This may be achieved through the use of name attribute within the hyperlink e.g. http:///www.example.vic.gov.au/about -us.html#contact-us.

(6) This information can be located via http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/ministers.html.

(7) Press releases can be located via http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/pages/media-releases-by-minister.html.

(8) Adapted from the Wikipedia entry for Web portal .  Accessed 27 May 2009.

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Alternative Formats:

The guideline is available from the Government Services Group in pdf format (141kb). (This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). .

 

 

Last updated: 24 August 2010

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