Digital Transformation Office & the Digital Service Standard

Overview

The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) was set-up in 2015 and is part of the Prime Minister’s portfolio. The role of the DTO is to ‘work closely with government agencies, users and private sector partners to create public services that are simpler, clearer and faster’.

Digital Service Standard

The bedrock of achieving that goal is the creation of the Digital Service Standard (the DSS or the ‘Standard’).

The Standard is now live and any newly designed or redesigned website services will be assessed from May 2016.

The Standard sets out a list of 13 criteria that Australian Government departments and agencies are expect to meet.

Focus on the User

The Standard covers the full spectrum of a project design life cycle, however, the overarching theme is the focus on making services user centric - for all users. Designing a service that meets and exceeds the user's expectations regardless of ability or age related impairments.

Garnering users (including users with a disability and older users) input from the initial concept and requirements gathering stage of a project, through to performing user testing on the beta version, and finally gathering feedback on the live site is an integral part of the Standards.

Accessibility & the Standards

WCAG 2.0 Level AA

The DTO state that Australian Government department and agency websites should be designed to be WCAG 2.0 level AA compliant, in addition to user testing with people with disabilities.

WCAG 2.0 techniques need to be incorporate into each development stage of the website e.g. the design, development and production.

Criteria 9: 'Make it Accessible'

Accessibility is a key component of the Standards and has its own criterion - 9. Make it Accessible.

Accessibility spans the 4 service design and delivery process stages, below is an overview of how accessibility, and in particular the inclusion of users with a disability, should be incorporated at each phase:

1. Discovery

• Ensure users with a disability have been included as part of user research
• Gather specific needs & requirements of users with disabilities
• Plan how to make an accessible, WCAG compliant, website service.

2. Alpha

• Ensure prototypes can accommodate the needs of user with disabilities
• Any potential issues are flagged and noted
• Create an accessibility test plan

3. Beta

• Iteratively develop a website service that is accessibility - using the appropriate WCAG 2.0 techniques.
• Define supported browsers and devices, test and show they are accommodated
• Test and ensure users with a disability can complete all transactions on supported devices and platforms by:
  
  • Accessibility testing and auditing
    
  • User testing with users with a disability
    
• Demonstrate your service in a live-like environment

4. Live

The Standard requires that you:

• Demonstrate that your service is accessible
• Show evidence that you have completed accessibility testing and user testing with user with a disability and their assistive technologies.
• And that you have developed plans for maintaining accessibility

Furthermore, the DTO stress that websites need to be flexible to cover all usage situations including usage on mobile devices.

The DTO have also outlined information and requirements relating to procurement, policy & procedures, as well as web content formats (e.g. PDF, Word etc).

Design Principles

To complement the Standards the DTO have created a set of 10 design principles that need to be adhered to. The 6th design principle relates specifically to accessibility ‘This is for everyone’.

“Accessible design is good design. Everything we build should be as inclusive, legible and readable as possible.”

Scope of the Standards

The standard is for public facing Federal government websites. The Standard applies to all non-corporate Commonwealth entities under the PGPA Act (not Corporate Commonwealth Entities).

The Standard does not apply to state, territory or local government services. However, each jurisdiction may decide to apply the Standard to improve their service delivery.

More information on the scope of the standards.

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The Full List of Criteria

The Standard consists of the following criteria:

1. Understand user needs

   Understand user needs. Research to develop a deep knowledge of the users and their context for the service.

2. Have a multi-disciplinary team

   Establish a sustainable multi-disciplinary team to design, build, operate and iterate the service, led by an experienced product manager with decision-making responsibility.

3. Agile and user-centred process

   Design and build the service using the service design and delivery process, taking an agile and user-centred approach.

4. Understand tools and systems

   Understand the tools and systems required to build, host, operate and measure the service and how to adopt, adapt or procure them.

5. Make it secure

   Identify the data and information the service will use or create. Put appropriate legal, privacy and security measures in place.

6. Consistent and responsive design

   Build the service with responsive design methods using common design patterns and the style guide.

7. Use open standards and common platforms

   Build using open standards and common government platforms where appropriate.

8. Make source code open

   Make all new source code open by default.

9. Make it accessible

   Ensure the service is accessible to all users regardless of their ability and environment.

10. Test the service

    Test the service from end to end, in an environment that replicates the live version.

11. Measure performance

    Measure performance against KPIs set out in the guides. Report on public dashboard.

12. Don’t forget the non-digital experience

    Ensure that people who use the digital service can also use the other available channels if needed, without repetition or confusion.

13. Encourage everyone to use the digital service

    Encourage users to choose the digital service and consolidate or phase out existing alternative channels where appropriate.

The Principles

The DTO's 10 principles to inform service design:

1. Start with needs: user needs, not government needs.
2. Do less.
3. Design with data.
4. Do the hard work to make it simple.
5. Iterate. Then iterate again.
6. This is for everyone.
7. Understand context.
8. Build digital services, not websites.
9. Be consistent, not uniform.
10. Make things open: it makes things better.