Help achieve the goal for government

We are working to create government services that are:

  • simpler, faster and better
  • built for and with the people who will use our services

To do this, we developed and continue to maintain a Digital Service Standard that:

  • defines what a simpler, faster and better government service looks like
  • identifies the steps a multi-disciplinary team needs to take to create a service
  • supports multi-disciplinary teams building and maintaining services and products

The standard and our guides work together to help staff and vendors deliver high-quality services. This helps government keep pace with developing technologies and best practices.

Multi-disciplinary teams include:

  • digital and data practitioners
  • policy and program areas
  • communications teams
  • IT partners and vendors
  • legal, privacy and security teams

Get to know the Digital Service Standard

Any government project that involves creating or improving a digital service, in-house or with vendors, needs to meet the Digital Service Standard.

We evaluate digital services against the standard through an assessment process. We share advice to help teams continuously improve their services and products.

Review our case studies

Our case studies explain how government teams used the Digital Service Standard to build better services and products.

Read how teams:

Learn how to design or improve a service

  1. Start with the Service Design Playbook.

    This guide outlines what to do before and after you launch a new or improved service.

    It also helps you:

    • build the right team
    • understand your users and their needs through research
    • test ideas and prototypes to continuously improve
  2. Use guides, tools and resources.

    You need to know what best practices to follow at different times during your service’s development. Use these guides to design and improve your products, policies, programs and services.

Use our guides, tools and resources

Understand users and meet their needs

User research guide

Learn how to plan user research, choose a research technique, recruit participants, and turn your findings into services and products. The guide includes user research method cards, consent and compensation forms for user research interviews and testing.

Inclusive design toolkit

This toolkit includes books, templates, and downloads to help you make accessible and inclusive services and products. The toolkit includes inclusive design cards and an accessibility guide for digital services.

Deliver consistent user experiences

Ontario Design System

Use this repository of reusable styles and components for building digital products. It enables teams to save time and avoid duplication of work while delivering a consistent, accessible user experience.

Ontario.ca style guide

Write and design plain language content that will make your services easy to find, use and understand no matter what type of device people use.

Be a good data steward

Application Programming Interface (API) Guidelines

Build stable, scalable, reusable and connected digital services that reduce duplication of work by allowing applications to share common data and processes.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Guidelines

Read a draft framework for clear, transparent and ethical use of artificial intelligence. Learn to communicate and manage the risks and benefits of using data-enhanced technologies in government processes, programs and services.

Ontario data catalogue

Learn how we share government data. Browse thousands of datasets on the Ontario data catalogue including hundreds that are open and available for use.

Champion new ways of working

Agile in government

Learn how Agile principles help you manage your workflows and build user-centred government services and products.

Digital era leadership

Share and promote our content on Ontario.ca and GitHub with your peers and network.

Internal training and events

Attend our learning events and drop-in coaching sessions for Ontario government staff. We cover a range of topics, including digital inclusion, content design, leadership, lean service design, user research and more.

Contact us

If you have questions or feedback about the Digital Service Standard or resources shared on this page, email our team servicedesign@ontario.ca.