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Investigate diverse needs early and design for all users from the onset. Ensure inclusivity and usability for everyone by collaborating with users through co-design: 

• Co-design the digital service and its artifacts with users throughout the service design and delivery process to incorporate their perspectives needs and feedback. The Queensland Government’s Co-design accessible and inclusive digital services provides best practice and is a good starting point.
• Collect analytics and data and conduct interviews, surveys and observation on user needs, goals, expectations and behaviours. It is more effective to investigate diverse needs early and less costly to make changes during the Discovery phase. 
• Use existing research from other agencies or sources relevant to your service. Include relevant studies or research papers, from academic and industry journals. 
• Gather insights from existing internal research. This may include past research reports, journey maps, historical project summaries, internal databases, project archives or management systems.
• Collaborate with professional networks and engage with experts and practitioners across the APS to share research findings, reports and insights. 

Conduct usability testing with individuals from various backgrounds, including those with different abilities, ages and cultural contexts:

• Use inclusive prototyping techniques to simulate diverse user experiences and identify potential challenges.
• Encourage shared ownership by co-designing tutorials and guides using language that is meaningful to all.
• Tailor the digital service to meet the specific needs of user groups and promote inclusion by providing appropriate support.

Document your findings and recommendations to apply criterion 1: 

• Provide evidence to support your decisions.
• Show how you have considered user needs, considered vulnerable cohorts, and whole-of-government objectives  
• Use the Digital Capability Assessment Process (DCAP) template to report on how you have met the criterion. 
• Make sure the data is collected and documented in a centralised knowledge repository. 

• Queenslanders with Disability Network: QDN’s Co-Design Principles 
• Victorian Government: Providing multilingual information online
• South Australian Government: Diversity in Australia
• Australian Government, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts: Captioning Apps
• Research with visually impaired users
• First Nations Digital Inclusion Advisory Group
• UNESCO Digital Library: Digital inclusion for low-skilled and low-literate people
• Agency for Digital Government: Digital Inclusion
• OECD Guidelines for Citizen Participation Processes | OECD

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 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.

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.

Services should be easy to use and enable users to achieve their intended tasks efficiently. Encourage users to engage digitally by understanding their motivations and communicating the benefits of digital adoption: 

• Conduct user research to understand why the service is used by the target audience. This can include interviews, surveys, observations and analytics on user needs, goals, expectations and behaviours.
• Gather information from past research reports, journey maps or project summaries. This can include historical internal documentation, internal databases, project archives or management systems. 
• Develop user personas, empathy maps or user journey maps.

Determine how users interact with the service:

• Consider principles of Digital Inclusion. The Agency for Digital Government provides a good starting point for information on Digital Inclusion and considerations or government services. 
• Barriers are often the cause of digital use reluctance. Find barriers by conducting user research, collecting feedback from users and testing the service with new and diverse users.

Document your findings and recommendations on how to apply criterion 2                         

• Make sure your proposal includes evidence showing consideration of user needs and provisions for easy service delivery to motivate digital use.   
• Use the Digital Capability Assessment Process (DCAP) template to report on meeting the criterion.
• Make sure the data is collected and documented in a centralised knowledge repository.

• Western Australian Government: Digital Services Content Standard
• NSW Government: How to encourage switching
• gov.uk: Encouraging people to use your service online
• Queensland Government: Digital community engage guideline
• Agency for Digital Government: Digital Inclusion
• OECD Guidelines for Citizen Participation Processes | OECD
• Simple and seamless services | Data and Digital

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.

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.  

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.

Set clear guidelines on acceptable behaviour, moderating content, and using technology to identify malicious behaviour and create a safe digital environment:

• Consider what would make a user feel safe when engaging with the provided digital service. 
• Provide a variety of contact methods. This may include options like email, chat, phone, social media and other feedback methods. 
• Communicate with empathy and transparency.
• Consider how the service aims to achieve user goals.

Consider how the service will build user trust and confidence in government:

• Regularly inform users about the data collected, why it is collected and how it will be used.
• Continuously assess and address risks to ensure user data remains protected.
• Create clear and concise consent forms and confirm user agreement before data is collected. 
• Allow users to easily update or delete their data. Make sure there’s options for users to report incorrect data and implement a prompt and transparent process to resolve issues.
• Educate users about best practice for account protection, such as strong passwords and keeping login details private.    
• Offer real-time feedback and progress tracking to enhance user experience and confidence in the service.
• Minimise the need for error messages by designing intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. When errors occur, provide clear and actionable messages.
• Explain tasks up front and give context about what users need to complete it. This may include information, documents, payment methods or eligibility. Let users pause and resume tasks at their convenience.