Userguide for 2005–06 Annual Report

This Userguide has been developed to inform you about the features and design elements of the online version of the Commonwealth Ombudsman's 2005–06 Annual Report.

Navigation

This site has been designed with a strong emphasis on navigation to help you locate your position in the site. Each page contains eight navigation areas.

1. First level navigation is a black bar located just below the Ombudsman 2005–06 banner and contains links to the Annual Report home, Contents, Userguide, Download, Contact and Glossary.

2. Second level navigation is a grey bar and contains links to individual Annual Report chapters.

3. Third level navigation is a 'breadcrumb'. Breadcrumb navigation displays the current page's context within the site structure. The term 'breadcrumb' is as in 'Hansel and Gretel'—leaving a trail of crumbs in order to find their way back out of the forest. The benefit of this approach is that it is shows the way in which information has been grouped and allows the user both to move between these groupings and understand the information structure.

4. Fourth level navigation, 'In this chapter', sits at the top left-hand corner of each page and links to the sub-sections in each chapter.

5. Fifth level navigation sits below the 'In this chapter' menu and contains links to the references section of the report. The references section includes 'List of tables and figures', 'Glossary', 'Compliance index' & 'Abbreviations and acronyms'.

6. Sixth level navigation sits at the bottom line of each page and contains a link to the top of the page and also provides you with links to the previous and next sub-section of the report.

7. Seventh level navigation sits on the bottom of each page and contains links to Annual Report chapters, listing their full titles. Home will take you to the Annual Report 2005–06 homepage. Contents will take you to the table of contents page. Download will take you to a page with links to PDFs of the full report and individual chapters.

8. Eighth level navigation is at the bottom of the page. There are links to the Commonwealth Ombudsman website, Publications links you to other Commonwealth Ombudsman publications and Contact us lists contact details for our office.

9. Ninth level navigation is at the bottom of the page and provides details about when the content was last updated or changed, the website address (URL), links to make a complaint online or by phone, and links to copyright, disclaimer, and privacy information.

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Downloads

Download will take you to the download library page. PDFs available for individual chapters or the whole document. Please use the PDF for printing this report.

Large PDF files

Your browser may open PDF files within the browser window. It is strongly recommended that the following procedure be used to access these files: RIGHT mouse button on the link and Choose 'Save Target As...' (Internet Explorer) OR 'Save Link As...' (Netscape), Select an appropriate folder on a local drive to place the downloaded file. Attempting to open large Adobe Acrobat files within the browser window may lead to system problems.

Acrobat Reader

Documents on the download page are provided as Adobe Acrobat PDF files. You will need to install the Adobe Acrobat reader on your computer to view these files. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is available free of charge from Adobe's website.

Portable Document Format, or PDF as it is commonly known, is a technology developed by Adobe Systems. It allows print documents, such as this report, to be compressed into portable electronic files directly from the original documents.

Top link

This link enables you to return to the top of the page you are currently in.

Previous page

A link to the previous page is located at the bottom of each page. You can return to the top, go to the previous sub-section or go to the next sub-section of the report.

Next page

A link to the next page is located at the bottom of each page. You can return to the top, go to the previous sub-section or go to the next sub-section of the report.

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Search

There is a search facility in the banner at the top right corner of all content pages. This search facility can search for keywords within the current annual report. If you would like to look at other publications, please use the seventh level navigation and go to the Publications page or the Commonwealth Ombudsman website search facility.

Larger or smaller text

You can manually change the font size as all text sizes in this document have been scaled using relative (percentage size) fonts. If you are having trouble viewing information in the Annual Report, you can make the text size larger.

If you would like to make the font/text size smaller or larger use the buttons within the Report toolbox at the top right hand corner of the page content alongside the 'Print Page' button. These buttons will increase or decrease the text size one increment larger or smaller than the default text size.

Please note: Using this text button will only change pages within the Commonwealth Ombudsman Annual Report. Text on other websites will remain at the usual size.

Alternatively most browsers also contain a feature that allows users to display 'larger' or 'smaller' text. For example: in Microsoft Internet Explorer click on 'view' menu and select 'text size' and then select one of the font sizes, or in Netscape Navigator click on 'view' menu and change the font/text size. Otherwise please refer to your browser's help facility for instructions.

Accessibility

The Commonwealth Ombudsman aims to provide a report accessible to the largest possible audience and a site with strong design elements. We have used the following standards to design the Annual Report:

• alternative text links for image based links
• summary attributes for layout tables
• alternative text equivalents for figures, charts and graphs
• adjustable relative (percentage) text sizes
• consistent navigation throughout the site
• extensive style sheet presentation control
• tab option that allows you to tab through every link on the page
• multiple browser testing.

Standards

Standards followed in the development of this site are based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 1.0 (WCAG 1.0), a set of guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to enable equal access to all users of the Internet.

Under these guidelines, we believe we have met all applicable Priority 1 and Priority 2 checkpoints, as well as a number of key Priority 3 checkpoints. Check the WAI-QuickTips for a brief overview of building websites enabled for access impaired users or see Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 for a detailed insight.

Feedback

We encourage all users of the report to provide feedback regarding any access problems. Providing as much information as possible about your computer, operating system and browser makes it easier to identify your access problem. For users with vision impairments, we encourage you to provide us with feedback regarding the accessibility of the Annual Report. Please use the link in the eighth level navigation to email ombudsman@ombudsman.gov.au with your feedback. If appropriate, please include the specific URL (website address) of any specific pages in your feedback.

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Known issues

Netscape version 4.5 and earlier, Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.5 and earlier and non Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) browsers. These browsers have a method for displaying CSS that is not as standardised as modern browsers. Other older browsers don't display CSS at all. Standard CSS is the major element in the 'interface design' of this web site and due to the limitations, the interface of these portals are not as 'stylised' in these browsers as they are in newer browsers.

All the information is still available and the text can still be scaled using the browser preferences or options.

The 'larger' or 'smaller' text buttons within the Report toolbox will not function in some older browsers including Netscape version 4.77 and earlier, and Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.5 and earlier.

The 'Print Page' button within the Report toolbox does not function in Microsoft Internet Explorer on the Macintosh platform.

Large pages

There are some pages that may take a bit longer to display due to table data and figure graphics. Please send us feedback if you experience problems with the download times.

Printing pages

While it is possible to print the HTML pages of this report, we suggest downloading the PDF version for printing purposes. If you choose to print the HTML pages it may be necessary to print in landscape format or to utilise your print dialogue box to 'reduce to fit' or percentage reduce the page.

Contact us

For further information about this report or a copy of this report in other formats, please contact the Director Public Affairs at ombudsman@ombudsman.gov.au or phone 1300 362 072 (local call charge).