Canada.ca blog
As of July 2024, we are no longer publishing new blog posts to blog.canada.ca. We now share our work through the Canadian Digital Service (CDS) blog.
Search the collection of past articles
These previous posts remain online as they continue to be relevant resources for improving and designing your web content. You can also use the guidance from the Canada.ca design system.
Newest articles
Design toolkit for emergencies
Meeting user needs on Canada.ca during a crisis.
Unified design system and update of DTO’s merger with CDS
Learn about how we're creating a unified source for code, design and documentation to help teams build websites and applications.
Flexible navigation page design for emergencies
In a crisis, current web templates may not be ideal for sharing complex, fast-changing information. Government teams should prototype a flexible landing page that is ready to be used when it’s needed.
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Design toolkit for emergencies
Meeting user needs on Canada.ca during a crisis.
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Unified design system and update of DTO’s merger with CDS
Learn about how we're creating a unified source for code, design and documentation to help teams build websites and applications.
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Flexible navigation page design for emergencies
In a crisis, current web templates may not be ideal for sharing complex, fast-changing information. Government teams should prototype a flexible landing page that is ready to be used when it’s needed.
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We’re changing the way we identify top tasks for Canada.ca
Top tasks help prioritize what web content needs to be improved. As of 2022, top tasks for Canada.ca are identified using visitors’ responses to the GC Task Success Survey.
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Wayfinding research project improves our approach to navigation on Canada.ca
The wayfinding study investigated issues with Canada.ca navigation and informed changes to improve navigation and simplify the adoption of the Canada.ca design.
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Introducing the contextual Sign in button
To improve findability for this important top task, the global header component of Canada.ca now includes the option of adding a contextual Sign in button on pages where people are likely looking to sign in to an account.
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Using alerts to keep news releases and web content in sync
Up-to-date web content increases trust. We've learned a lot about what works for visitors amid changing rules in emergency situations.
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April Fool's: New design update for Canada.ca
We’ve heard you #GCDigital. Canada.ca is getting a brand-new design!
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Using task success data to improve user experience
Evidence from the GC Task Success Survey can help support positive cultural change within your organization.
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Thinking of adding a chatbot?
It's important to evaluate if a chatbot is the right fit for the people you serve.
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Design with humility
Humility is an amazing driving force that will help you build better services.
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Avoid promotional carousels, improve web content
People don't click on promotional carousels on Canada.ca. Learn how to design effective promotions.
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3 steps to making links more effective
Remove barriers and make it easier for people to find those paths through careful selection, strategic placement and clear labelling of your links.
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Co-design with approvers at the table
Together, look at various sources of data to help guide efforts at iterating and regularly improving your web presence.
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Thank you Team Canada.ca/coronavirus
This massive effort was recognized yesterday with a Platinum Award at the 2021 CCO Awards Ceremony.
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The magic of using interactive questions
This pattern is used to present people with a sequence of simple questions that leads to the specific answer they need to continue with or complete their task.
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Maintaining and improving web content through its life cycle
Small changes make a big difference to improve Canada.ca. Let’s continue the discussion on data to action. Here are 4 common issues and actions you can take.
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The importance of working with call centres
Whether you run an in-house call centre or outsource your call centre to a trusted partner, agents are the key to harnessing customer feedback. Using this data can help you improve your web content and services with real people in mind.
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Using data to make better content
We wanted to share some of our most recent experiences with using data to make important content work better.
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Silver linings from 2020
As we countdown to 2021, the #GCDigital web community would like to share some of our silver linings from the past year.
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Choosing the right button for task success
The super task button is a large-ish, attractive green button and it really gets your attention!...How using the right button style in the right situation can help people succeed better on your web page.
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Using interactive checklists to simplify eligibility criteria
In the last couple of years, the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) has been studying the use of interactive checklists to simplify the way we present eligibility criteria.
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Increasing transparency on Canada.ca
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s Digital Advisory Services (DAS) collaborated with the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) on design concepts to increase transparency.
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Using graphics to bridge language gaps
In this post, the Northwest Territories (NWT) share how they use illustrations to make COVID-19 web content and communications products more accessible to all their communities.
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Collect feedback, find issues
Getting feedback from Canadians on a regular basis helps teams across government continuously improve the service delivery on Canada.ca. In May 2020, a few teams collaborated to launch a pilot study of a widget for getting people’s feedback on Canada.ca pages.
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Labelling study: which words work best
Canada.ca/Coronavirus is one of the most visited pages on Canada.ca. This week, we’re looking at the labels we’ve chosen for categories and links on that page, and how they improve the ‘findability’ of the top tasks.
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Improving Canada.ca by focusing on COVID-19 top tasks
In May 2020, the DTO collaborated with Gerry McGovern, the World Health Organization (WHO), Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada on a study to identify people’s top COVID-19 tasks on Canada.ca.
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Using expand/collapse for making choices
In November 2019, the DTO modified Canada.ca guidance to allow the use of the expand/collapse design pattern to present a choice between mutually exclusive answers.
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Recycling an existing solution for the COVID-19 real-time updates
In the digital world, there isn’t always a need to reinvent the wheel. We’re finding ways to reduce workloads and delivery times by re-using solutions that we know work. These solutions come from unparalleled collaborations between many teams.
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Canada.ca is a trusted source
With the increase in phishing campaigns and scams related to COVID-19 on government sites, it is more important than ever to provide a consistent and trustworthy user experience.
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Design research during a pandemic
When the pandemic was confirmed in mid-March, the Digital Transformation Office had to rethink and change our approach so we could help departments respond quickly and effectively to the rapidly changing situation.
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Alert fatigue during COVID-19
The more you put into managing your alerts, the more effective they’ll be at communicating your message.
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Designing for accessibility during COVID-19
Designing digital government services with accessibility in mind is key to ensuring that everyone can get the services they need quickly and easily.
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A case for descriptive link text
Clear link text can help thousands more people get to the Canada.ca content they need quickly and easily.
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Avoiding FAQs, with one exception
Why FAQs are an ineffective content design choice most of the time, and when they can actually work.
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A Government of Canada design system: building better online content faster
Making it easier and faster to design effective content within a coherent digital experience.
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Finding the right method to measure online task success
What we learned about exit surveys, usability testing and analytics funnels.
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Optimize your content for voice search
What we learned about improving voice services for Canadians.
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Top 10 content design lessons the Canada.ca design team learned in 2019
Top 10 content design lessons the Canada.ca design team learned in 2019.
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A micro-mission, why it’s worth a try
Have you seen micro-mission offers come along and wondered if it was worth it? My answer: definitely!
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Content design tips from our Travel advice and advisories and Contact the CRA optimization projects
In the winter of 2019, the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) worked with teams from Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) on two separate optimization projects: Travel advice and advisories and Contact the CRA. Both involved top tasks that millions of Canadians seek to complete on Canada.ca each year.
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Six content design tips from our Student loans and Parental benefits optimization projects
In the fall of 2018, the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) worked with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) teams on two optimization projects: Student loans and grants, and Employment insurance for maternity and parental benefits.
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Finding a government job…it should be so easy…
The Public Service Commission worked with the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) and other partners over the summer to optimize the task of finding a government job on the Canada.ca website.
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About the Canada.ca design update
Canada.ca hadn’t had a significant update to its design in over five years. In 2019, the Digital Transformation Office led an exercise to modernize and simplify the trusted digital brand, based on evidence and testing with over 4000 people.
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Collaborating to make business registration easier for Canadian business owners
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) collaborated to simplify tasks for small businesses on Canada.ca. These tasks were chosen based on call volume data that let us to identify some of the most common reasons that people call to get help.
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Recalls and safety alerts: An optimization project to better protect Canadians
Of the top 100 tasks on Canada.ca, getting recalls and safety alerts is #8. It gets nearly 7 million annual visits, 71% of which are via mobile. For food-related alerts, that jumps to a whopping 84%.
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CRA and TBS collaborate to optimize GST/HST and Payroll webpage content
The web, communications, and program teams at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been working closely with the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) to make tax information on Canada.ca easier for small business owners to find, understand and use.
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Dates matter: Trust and older content on Canada.ca
In a recent usability study, we saw people disregarding Canada.ca search results that seemed too old. Find out how you can validate your content and show that it's still current.
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Collaborative work to optimize diseases and immunization content
Over the past few months the web team at Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada has been working with the Digital Transformation Office on optimizing top tasks for the diseases and immunization topics of the health theme.
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Canada.ca: Small changes can make a big difference
Small changes are making a big difference for Canadians on Canada.ca. Read what Treasury Board President Scott Brison has to say about the improvement work underway.
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Visit Canada: Optimization
The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) worked with Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to improve people’s experience in figuring out what documents they need when visiting Canada. Here’s how this optimization project turned out.
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Old habits die hard (when feelings get in the way)
The main challenge of improving the UX of our sites and services isn’t the adoption of a particular technology or tool; it’s the adoption of new values and approaches — culture change.
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Improve digital services by measuring outcomes
Gerry McGovern offers his thoughts on his visit to Ottawa on February 13, 2018.
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Delivering a great citizen experience
Blog post by the Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board.
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Helping Canadians start a business
Starting a business is a top task for Canadians and it’s not an easy one. Here’s how this optimization project turned out.
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How we're optimizing Canada.ca top tasks
Optimization projects are a way to make meaningful improvements for Canadians without investing a lot of time and money.
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How we identify top tasks for Canada.ca
There are thousands of Government of Canada (GC) tasks out there, some small, and some complex. So how do we prioritize?
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Taking steps to new design patterns
One of the key aspects of the Canada.ca design is a consistent template for topic pages to help citizens find and start their tasks.