Improving service delivery on Canada.ca is a collaborative and continuous team effort. Public servants across the GC are working together to create a digital experience that follows the principles of accessibility, accountability, and transparency.
Not long ago, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s Digital Advisory Services (DAS) collaborated with the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) on design concepts to increase transparency. With annual report season coming soon, we thought we’d share the results of their work.
Together they launched a new transparency template in the GC Design System earlier this year.
Transparency and corporate reporting - recommended template
What is the transparency template?
The transparency template provides a common layout for making corporate information public. This includes things like:
- quarterly financial reports
- contracts awarded
- travel and hospitality expenses
The common layout makes it easier for members of the public to complete tasks related to institutional transparency.
Making this information available to the public is a key piece of our democracy. It ensures that Canadians can hold their government and public sector officials to account.
The new transparency template:
- supports a consistent approach to the presentation of corporate reporting information across departments
- enables task completion by prioritizing access to tasks related to corporate reporting
- complements the objectives of the institutional landing pages by offering institution-specific information on proactive disclosure
- limits the amount of content used to describe proactive disclosure
This template is optional, but it’s user-proven. We recommend you use it for publishing corporate reporting information.
Deploying this template as well as the GC design system provides a more usable, consistent and trustworthy online experience for people who access Government of Canada digital services.
Start with user-tested templates and patterns
Starting with user-tested templates, patterns and design principles helps teams to get going quickly. It helps save time and money. We create these resources to help teams design digital content focused on the task people are trying to accomplish.
Final word
Just like our transparency template, the design of Canada.ca is collaboratively and continuously improved in response to user needs. When we draw on the collective creativity and innovative ideas of colleagues, we help users complete their tasks. Thank you to the TBS DAS team for their initiative and work on this template!
We want to encourage others to help improve service delivery on Canada.ca. Together, we can be an open, collaborative, and accessible digital government. Each of us has a part to play to ensure that happens.
If you’re interested in contributing to this effort, connect with us at the DTO (see channels listed below).