Updates to digital policy and service standards
Editor’s Note: As we create more responsive and flexible public services, we also continue to iterate on our guidance. Learn more about the province’s vision to bring major change to government — both in terms of the services it delivers and how it delivers them — in the Ontario Onwards Action Plan.
A strong foundation
In 2017, we launched the digital service standard in alpha to help Ontario ministries and agencies build and deliver user-centred government services and products. Not long after, the province enacted the first law in Canada to encode digital delivery and data-sharing practices into statute through its Simpler, Faster Better Services Act (SFBSA).
Learn more about our path to better digital services in this post about Ontario’s Digital Service Standard (DSS). This standard sets the stage for our broader work to modernize guidance, policies and rules that influence the way that we design and deliver online services to people and businesses.
A new digital and data directive
Part of our role in digital transformation is to support and enable partners across government, to make it easier for them to deliver a consistent online experience.
The province’s new Digital and Data Directive outlines the operational rules for ministries and agencies to meet the expectations of the SFBSA. A key part of the guidance focuses on data use.
Ontario government datasets — which do not include personal or identifying information — have been open by default since 2016. Making non-sensitive data available for public use helps support researchers and municipalities, provide greater insight to citizens, and enable new business ideas. This data is released in privacy-protective ways to ensure that no personal information is included.
Ontario’s new directive expands the approach to data sharing by requiring transparency of any additional information necessary for the data’s management, access and use. Again, this does not include information that is private, confidential or sensitive.
For example, this can include database structure, algorithms, computational models, etc. As a result, users will know what data the government holds, and how it is using that data. In addition, while open by default continues to be an important principle, ministries are now directed to prioritize publishing data that would be of high value for their users. In parallel, data teams guide the release of this information, so that no personal information is ever included.
The directive also supports the design and delivery of good digital services by requiring all ministries and agencies to follow the DSS. This means that we also assess all digital services against our DSS through a Digital-First Assessment process.
Updates to the Digital Service Standard
To update the province’s DSS, we held retrospective sessions with Digital First Assessment (DFA) assessors and delivery teams to gather user insights and created a DSS working group to share ideas and solve common implementation blockers.
A critical aspect of this approach was capturing feedback from users of different backgrounds, including UX designers and product managers.
Our senior content designer hosted pair writing sessions with technical experts to co-develop content and incorporate feedback from users. This helped the policy team articulate the changes, making it easier for readers to understand in user-centred plain language.
As a result, we made key changes to the DSS, including:
Make it accessible and inclusive
We expanded the line “make it accessible” to include “and inclusive.” This is to highlight the importance of an inclusive lens to account for all user groups in a services’ design, to ensure equitable access to digital service and that all user groups are being heard.
Be a good data steward
We added this point to encourage delivery teams to inform users how their data will be used, to be transparent, to reuse data where possible, and to be respectful of privacy, security and cultural concerns. Data that is shared openly cannot include personal information as a key priority is protecting personal privacy.
Removing duplicate language
We removed “Encourage people to use digital services” as users told us that this direction appeared across different standards and was repetitive as a standalone principle.
Support for lean, plain language and interoperability requirements
The DSS now provides teams with better information to support the design of their service and recognize the growing expectations for an efficient public service. For example, lean service design is highlighted in “Design service from start to finish” and APIs and legacy systems are mentioned in “Open standards and common platforms.” These are important additions to the DSS because they highlight how critical it is to consider the end-to-end service experience — not just tech, policy or program design in isolation.
What’s next
Currently, the team is reviewing other technology policies to identify potential blockers that could prevent teams from meeting the directive. We are working in collaboration with other teams, in other parts of government, and key privacy partners, to gather insights about current guidance with an eye to continue iterating on rules and standards, so that we clear a path to delivering consistently excellent digital services across the public service.
If you would like to learn more about digital and data standards, guidance and directives, or have feedback to share, you can reach us at digital.standard@ontario.ca. We would be happy to chat!
