Digital Service Standards

What are Digital Service Standards?

Digital Service Standards are best practices for designing and delivering government digital services. Applying them ensures the government's digital services are user friendly, consistent, accessible and secure.

These standards must be met for all public-facing digital services and websites.

How to meet the Digital Service Standards

You'll work with eServices to run the digital service through a series of UX Assessments and Service Compliance Checks. 

Digital Service Standards

1. Understand user needs

Understanding user needs means you have conducted research to develop a deep knowledge of a service’s users and their context for using the service.

Learn about UX Assessments after Discovery, Alpha and Beta.

2. Do ongoing user research

Project teams must complete user research throughout the service delivery process to continuously iterate the service to improve the user experience. The user research activities you undertake will depend on the type of service you're building.

Refer to the UX guide for advice on how and when to conduct user research.

3. Have a multidisciplinary project team

Having a multi-disciplinary project team in place is critical to the success of the project and quality of the digital service experience. It's essential key roles are filled by qualified people in each phase of service delivery.

See team roles required for each phase of the service delivery process.

4. Use agile, user centred methods

Using agile, user centred methods means the way your project is organized and the way you work together allows for multiple iterations made to improve the user experience. 

Learn more about how to build digital services using agile, user-centred methods.

5. Prioritize security and privacy

The project team must be aware of and have a plan to ensure the government's digital services are  secure and protect the privacy of users.

See all technical and legal assessments that apply to digital services..

6. Use open and common standards - technology

The government uses common government technology platforms to

• reduce development costs;
• ensure our platforms are modern and up-to-date; and
• deliver a consistent, reliable user experience.

7. Deliver a bilingual service

All public-facing digital services must be bilingual, with a few exceptions. Your project plan must include input from the French Language Services Directorate to ensure they have adequate time needed to complete translation and run their tests.

Learn how to get your digital service translated.

8. Test the end-to-end service

Test the end-to-end service in an environment identical to the live service before it is made public. This testing ensures everything will work for the public.

9. Make your service accessible and inclusive

Everyone should be able to access the government's digital services regardless of their ability and environment. Test your digital service throughout the service delivery process and once it is live to confirm it:

• meets or exceeds the government's current accessibility level; and
• follows guidance to develop content using inclusive language.

10. Have a plan for being offline

Users expect that a digital service or website is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Make sure you've:

• assessed how people will be affected if your service is offline; and
• have a plan to get it back online.

11. Encourage everyone to use the digital service

Once a digital service is live let people know it is available and encourage them to use it. Develop a plan to communicate its availability, describe how it enhances or replaces other service channels and get redirects in place. 

12. Collect and report on performance data

We must be able to measure the performance of the government's digital services and websites. You should have a plan to

• establish benchmarks;
• collect and report on the government's 4 main Key Performance Indicators (KPIs);
• identify KPIs specific to your service; and
• access and implement tools needed to collect performance data.

13. Make the user experience consistent

People should be able to recognize government digital services by how they look and function. 

Learn how to make the user experience consistent.

14. Be a good data steward

Being a good data steward means you've thought about and have a plan for the following.

• Will this digital service publish or share data?
• Does this data already exists elsewhere, or is it new?
• If the data exists elsewhere - what is the source? And how can we link to it?
• If the data is new - where will it live? Should it be linked to other related data sources?