Section 3 - Software Development

This section defines policies and standards required to ensure that software development projects intended to deliver E-Government are able to effectively support common infrastructure and provide consistent data and user interfaces.

User Interface to Applications

Government entities will ensure that access to any E-Government application is based on Open Systems standards using WWW (World Wide Web) technology and is capable of full functionality from at least the two most common current vendor implementations of browsers.

Web site design should comply with current best practice for presentation and security and to ensure full accessibility the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines from the World Wide Web Consortium should be followed.

Adherence to current Open Systems and Internet standards will enable integration of Intranet services between Government entities and provide reliable and predictable access to clients and citizens, including those with disabilities.

System Localisation

Government entities will ensure that operating systems and applications are configured to support appropriate and consistent New Zealand Language and environment options.

Specifically, the following local country parameters should be used:

• Date Format: dd mmm ccyy

• Time: Appropriate offset from GMT to also reflect daylight saving.

• Spelling: International English

Government entities must ensure that applications can be effectively configured to reflect New Zealand Date, Time and Spelling formats.

Date Integrity

Government entities must ensure that software is designed and tested in such a way as to mitigate any issues relating to data integrity affected by date issues.

Government entities must ensure that all their IT systems and business processes are audited for potential Year 2000 and related issues

Any new hardware, software and software development introduced to Government entities must be qualified as Year 2000 compliant and interface issues, in particular, must be critically examined in both integration and software development projects.