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Suggested activities to apply this criterion
Establish and maintain a safe digital environment for users
Create psychological safety: Hate speech and online abuse impacts the participation and inclusion of all those targeted by it. Establish clear community guidelines on acceptable behaviour and proactively moderate digital content. Where appropriate, leverage technology to identifying instances of malicious behaviour and align to best practices outlined by the eSafety Commission.
Counter scams and misinformation
Mitigate risk: Many digital users have encountered scams, fraud and loss of personal information. These experiences impact attitudes towards digital use. Help to ‘build trust in design’ by supporting the work of the National Anti-Scams Centre and mitigate misinformation by supporting the work of the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Provide transparency and feedback loops
Communicate safeguards: Communicate the safety measures that are in place to safeguard users against potential threats. Set up clear communication channels to report safety concerns and commit to resolving issues promptly.
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Suggested activities to apply this criterion
Communicate the benefits of adopting a digital channel
Demonstrate why going digital is worthwhile: Provide clear and comprehensive information about the purpose and benefits of digital services. Where possible, highlight time savings, convenience and emphasise how these enhance the overall user experience.
Use inclusive language and imagery: Use inclusive language and imagery, avoiding stereotypes and biases when communicating with your audience. Consider diverse cultural perspectives and make sure content is simple, respectful, and welcoming for all.
Understand the motivations of your audience
Understand motivational drivers: Use research and insights to understand the motivations of users and encourage them to remain engaged. This will help you understand if a service is too complicated or lacks support. To determine your current baseline of engagement, assess what proportion of your target audience engages online and work towards practices that encourage greater inclusion.
Make the digital service easy to use
Demonstrate ease of use: Consider demonstrating the service to new users. If possible, allow them to interact with the service and experience it firsthand. Prioritise interfaces that prioritise content that’s easy to find and make interactions as straightforward as possible.
Provide supporting guides and materials: Craft user guides with step-by-step instructions and include visual aids to support deeper levels of understanding. Provide a tiered structure in your support documentation, such as basic content for beginners and advanced topics for more experienced users. Determine where a self-service approach, such as online forums, can help users through their challenges.
Address barriers and concerns: Address challenges and make sure services are accessible so they allow for independence, empowerment and dignified access. Remove barriers that may force users to look to others for help. This is particularly important for services that detail financial or health-related information that users may prefer to keep private.
Provide gradual transition options: Encourage users to take their first digital step by lowering the barriers to getting started. For instance, promote awareness of the service through a variety of channels and offer hybrid service options, where available, that allow users to start a process offline and complete it online, easing them into the digital option.
Ask for information only once: Review internal and external data collection methods, and where possible, support users to provide information only once. Minimising duplication helps reduce frustrations for users.
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Suggested activities to apply this criterion
Consider diverse user needs from the outset
Listen to and understand diverse user needs: Consider diverse user needs from the outset. This will make sure services cater to the greatest range of users possible. Consider the different identities, characteristics and perspectives of users to make sure the digital service is welcoming and inclusive for all.
Conduct usability testing with diverse user groups: Do usability testing with individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those with different abilities, ages and cultural contexts. Adopt inclusive prototyping techniques to simulate the experiences of users with different abilities and identify potential challenges. Recognise that various aspects of a person’s identity, such as race, gender and age, all work together to shape their digital experience.
Co-design the digital service and its accompanying artifacts
Co-design with users: Involve users throughout the Service Design and Delivery Process to make sure their perspectives, needs and feedback are incorporated into the final service. Encourage shared ownership by co-designing accompanying artifacts, such as tutorials and guides, using language that is meaningful to all.
Consider cohort-specific digital inclusion requirements (outlined below): Tailor the digital service to meet the specific needs of user groups and promote inclusion to make sure support is provided at the appropriate level. Consider how to apply the following cohort specific requirements when designing and delivering digital services.
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Introducing the Digital Inclusion Standard
The Digital Inclusion Standard incorporates a wealth of thinking and research traditionally residing in siloed user groups. It seeks to build upon and elevate best practices to a whole-of-government level to foster digital inclusion and accessibility for all people and business.
The Digital Inclusion Standard is part of a suite of standards and guidance that sits within the Digital Experience Policy. The Digital Experience Policy supports a whole-of-government focus on improving the experience for people and business interacting digitally with government information and services. The Digital Experience Policy includes a suite of standards and guidance that supports agencies to deliver cohesive and consistent digital experiences, including but not limited to the Digital Service Standard, the Digital Performance Standard and the Digital Access Standard.
The Digital Inclusion Standard builds on the new Digital Service Standard Criterion 3 – Leave No One Behind, forming part of a set of standards and guidelines committed to improving digital experiences across government.
The scope of the Digital Inclusion Standard aligns to a digital experience (as defined in the Services covered by the Digital Inclusion Standard page). The Digital Inclusion Standard does not attempt to address barriers related to:
- access or infrastructure
- affordability
- non-digital services.
These issues are the focus of a range of government digital inclusion programs and initiatives.
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Example – new services designed or redesigned from 1 July 2024
Any new digital or ICT-enabled proposals coming forward in the 2024-25 MYEFO context will need to meet the requirements of the Digital Service Standard Version 2.0, as per the Investment Oversight Framework.
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Phase 2 – Existing public-facing services
From 1 July 2025, services that meet the following criteria will be required to meet Version 2.0 of the Digital Service Standard:
- public-facing
- owned by non-corporate Commonwealth entities
- all existing informational and transactional services.
Note: existing staff facing services are excluded.
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Example – existing public-facing services
Public-facing services in existence prior to 1 July 2024 will be required to update their services to meet the requirements under Version 2.0 of the Digital Service Standard from 1 July 2025 or seek an exemption from the DTA.
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Introducing the Digital Access Standard
The Digital Access Standard is not mandating one login for users or a single front door for government digital services, but careful consideration into the creation of new access points and investigation into the benefits of the consolidation of multiple access points.
Australian Government digital services are currently dispersed across multiple agency websites, portals and apps. This means that people need to understand how government works to find the support and services they need, leaving them to navigate a fragmented and decentralised digital government landscape. The myGov User Audit called for a consolidation of digital services across government to stop this situation from worsening. A coordinated approach moving government agencies towards a more centralised digital landscape is needed to support people in navigating government services.
The Digital Access Standard is part of a suite of standards and guidance that sits within the Digital Experience Policy. The Digital Experience Policy supports a whole-of-government focus on improving the experience for people and business interacting digitally with government information and services. The Digital Experience Policy includes a suite of standards and guidance that supports agencies to deliver cohesive and consistent digital experiences, including the Digital Service Standard, the Digital Inclusion Standard and the Digital Performance Standard.
To support a common experience for users, the Digital Access Standard extends on Criterion 4 ‘Connect services’ and Criterion 6 ‘Don’t re-invent the wheel’ of the Digital Service Standard. The Digital Access Standard sets criteria that agencies must meet to determine where their new digital service fits into the whole-of-government digital service landscape. The criteria will help agencies assess if a new access point is required or if they can reuse existing platforms and capabilities.
This policy will ensure agencies design and deliver digital services in consideration of the broader government landscape, including the Data and Digital Government Strategy, the Digital Service Standard and the Digital and ICT Reuse Policy.
The Digital Access Standard supports the Data and Digital Government Strategy and Digital Service Standard by promoting consistency across digital services and making sure services:
- are accessible
- are secure
- are transparent
- meet the needs of people and business.
Connect with the digital community
Share, build or learn digital experience and skills with training and events, and collaborate with peers across government.