Do you have Web standards? Are they being followed?
Most companies have Web standards, but many have difficulty applying them corporate-wide. There are various reasons for this, including: internal disagreement or non-awareness, non-exploitable, outdated or overly complicated standards and even internal politics. Not using or not complying with existing standards results in redundant developments (paying multiple times for the same Web site feature at different sites) escalating maintenance costs to update and evolve Web sites (multiplied by the number of corporate sites) and, generally, wasted time and operational efforts in an increasingly competitive economy.
Are your Web standards "actionable" for both IT and Business?
"Actionable" standards are those that promote awareness, agreement and "buy-in" by all IT and Business stakeholders. This is best achieved if all stakeholders are involved in their selection and periodic review. Of course, standards must meet the company's Business and IT requirements, but we have observed that it is also important to apply standards to the people and processes involved in the design process.
Web Standards accelerates essential consensus and change
Our Web Standards offering helps companies establish actionable Web standards for Business and IT. Resulting from our extensive research, and as a neutral third party, our analysts provide an impartial approach to achieving consensus and common understanding among stakeholders, and bring an outside perspective that your Web site development team and employees cannot provide.
What is the Web Standards offering?
It's part of a continuum of services available in the Web Effectiveness Program, which provides focused assistance at key points in the lifecycle of your company's Web sites to:
- Ensure that they continue to meet the needs of your business,
- Improve their ROI.
Each box is a packaged offering, which can be:
- Delivered in a very short time,
- Tailored to suit your needs,
- Bundled with others as required.
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The basic Web Standards service consists of three steps:
Step 1:A one-day best practice workshop on Web site design to help you align Business and IT stakeholders and explain the Web standards framework, from which your own standards can be reviewed, completed and updated. Using our framework and best practices, your Web team will then be able to revise and finalize your own Web standards.
Deliverables:
Step 2: Validation of your newly revised Web standards by our analysts.
Deliverables:
- Validation of your corporate Web standards, with recommendations for adjustments as appropriate.
Step 3: A Compliance Audit by our Web Site Assessment Team to ensure that your standards are being correctly adhered to and applied (two one-day audits onsite, limited to one year). Further updates of our Best Practices are provided depending on the changes in Web users' behavior and expectations. Step 3 can be renewed every year to ensure accuracy and compliance of Web standards over time.
Deliverables:
- Two Compliance Audits.
- Update(s) of Best Practices for one year.
We also offer the following three optional packaged components to complement the three basic steps:
- Facilitation Workshops (Step 1): Facilitation workshop to serve as a catalyst for the process of internal collaboration and consensus. This workshop can be repeated multiple times during Step 1 and with different audiences (business units, geographic regions).
- Web Standards Sample Document (Step 1): In addition to the deliverables of Step 1, we can provide a sample of a complete Web standards document. This can be especially valuable for companies without (significant) standards in place, and hence cannot leverage a certain percentage of their existing standards. This sample document reduces the time to set up the new Web Standards. The main work consists of adapting this sample to the company's context and needs.
- Compliance Audit (Step 3): The compliance audits of Step 3 can be extended on a yearly subscription basis. This provides external monitoring of corporate-wide adherence to standards. It ensures that corporate standards will be constantly updated to conform to the latest data on users' behavior changes and expectations.
