This document provides a commentary and exploration of the ten Quality Principles published by the Minerva project. The ten principles present a high-level vision, and need guidance on implementation and assessment.

This document adds supporting information for each of the principles, and, for each of the ten principles, provides:

• a commentary, providing interpretation, background information and motivation for the principle
• a set of criteria which can be used to assess whether a Website is compliant with the principle
• a checklist, based on the criteria, which can be used in assessing the Website
• a set of practical and pragmatic tests and questions which a Website owner can use to gain further insight into the compliance of his site.

The ten principles are aimed at cultural Websites - those developed by museums, libraries, archives and other cultural institutions. However, the principles are quite generic and can be applied to almost any Website. This document adds a cultural emphasis to the principles, where this is appropriate and adds value.

the ten quality principles

Celebrating European cultural diversity by providing access to digital cultural content for all

A good quality cultural Website must:

• be transparent, clearly stating the identity and purpose of the Website, as well as the organisation responsible for its management
• select, digitise, author, present and validate content to create an effectiveWebsite for users
• implement quality of service policy guidelines to ensure that the Website is maintained and updated at an appropriate level
• be accessible to all users, irrespective of the technology they use or their disabilities, including navigation, content, and interactive elements
• be user-centred, taking into account the needs of users, ensuring relevance and ease of use through responding to evaluation and feedback
• be responsive, enabling users to contact the site and receive an appropriate reply. Where appropriate, encourage questions, information sharing and discussions with and between users
• be aware of the importance of multi-linguality by providing a minimum level of access in more than one language
• be committed to being interoperable within cultural networks to enable users to easily locate the content and services that meet their needs
• be managed to respect legal issues such as IPR and privacy and clearly state the terms and conditions on which the Website and its contents may be used
• adopt strategies and standards to ensure that the Website and its content can be preserved for the long-term

transparent • effective • maintained • accessible • user-centred • responsive • multi-lingual • interoperable • managed • preserved

Download Quality Principles for Cultural Websites: a Handbook

PDF format, 260KB, 36Pages.

edited by
Minerva Working Group 5
Identification of user needs, contents and quality criteria
for Cultural Web Applications

how to use this guide

A Website should be assessed against each of the principles in turn. The importance of each principle varies with the life-cycle stage of the project - some are more important during project planning, others when the project is largely complete, etc. Consult the Principles Priority Matrix (section 12) for details.

For each principle:
1. Read the commentary and note how the principle applies to your Website
2. Review the set of criteria, adjusting them to fit your own particular circumstances, if necessary
3. Complete the checklist
4. Carry out the tests and answer the questions
5. Review your site again and identify steps which need to be carried out to improve the quality of your Website
6. Prioritise these steps, plan and implement them

Visit Quality Principles for Cultural Websites: a Handbook Website

Conclusion

Quality is a critical characteristic of any Website. It has particular resonance in the cultural sector because of the importance and value of the material being presented on cultural Websites. As use of the Internet as an information access medium continues to grow, exposure to culture via the Internet becomes more and more prevalent. As the Internet is used more and more for education and research, the quality of online content becomes more and more important.

This document has discussed the ten quality principles in some detail. The key messages are:

• Quality must be planned into a Website from the start

• The user is critical - involve him at every stage

• Relationships with other online resources (interoperability) and with future resources (long term preservation) must be given due thought With proper planning, and building on the information, examples, standards and guidelines available, creating a high-quality Website need not be much more difficult, expensive or slow than creating a lower-quality one.

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