Digital Service Standard

The Digital Service Standard supports this vision by promoting consistency across digital services and ensuring services:

• are accessible
• are secure 
• are transparent 
• meet the needs of people and business.

Version 2.0 of the Digital Service Standard has reduced the number of criteria to 10, compared to 13 criteria of the former version released in 2016. The changes reflect the government’s increased level of digital maturity and adoption of trust and protection principles that have increased in the years since 2016. The updated Digital Service Standard strengthens inclusion and accessibility requirements, so no one is left behind when accessing government’s digital services.

The Digital Service 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 Inclusion Standard, the Digital Performance Standard and the Digital Access Standard.

The Digital Experience Policy mandates 4 standards to put people and business at the centre of government through our digital services. The Digital Service Standard is one of them. The Standard's criteria ensure that we create and provide reliable digital services. They ask us to set clear goals, know who are building for and challenge our own assumptions about their needs.

They encourage interoperability, intuitive and transparent user experiences, and to reuse what people are familiar with and works well. They require us to put people's rights first, to innovate where it makes sense, and to continuously measure, gather feedback and improve. As the Australian Government continuously improves its digital services, these criteria ensure we build and maintain them to put people's needs first.

So, ready to design, deliver and set the standard? Search 'Digital Service Standard' on digital.gov.au.