Canada.ca blog | Canada.ca blog Canada.ca blog As of December 17, 2025 we have resumed publishing. We have also shared our work through the Canadian Digital Service (CDS) blog. Newest articles Designing AI help applications for Canada.ca Over the past year, we’ve worked closely with 18 government departments to better understand what makes an AI help application reliable, consistent, and useful for people using Canada.ca. [12 February 2026] AI Answers: Enterprise-scale trials for Canada.ca Every day, thousands of people turn to the Government of Canada (GC) seeking help with essential services. [17 December 2025] Results from the AI Trust study on Canada.ca In 2024, DTO undertook an Artificial Intelligence (AI) trust study to gauge the public’s trust of different AI design approaches for Canada.ca. [18 February 2025] Designing AI help applications for Canada.ca Over the past year, we’ve worked closely with 18 government departments to better understand what makes an AI help application reliable, consistent, and useful for people using Canada.ca. [12 February 2026] AI Answers: Enterprise-scale trials for Canada.ca Every day, thousands of people turn to the Government of Canada (GC) seeking help with essential services. [17 December 2025] Results from the AI Trust study on Canada.ca In 2024, DTO undertook an Artificial Intelligence (AI) trust study to gauge the public’s trust of different AI design approaches for Canada.ca. [18 February 2025] Design toolkit for emergencies Meeting user needs on Canada.ca during a crisis. [10 June 2024] 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. [5 June 2024] 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. [13 May 2024] 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. [22 March 2023] 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. [21 December 2022] 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. [23 September 2022] 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. [28 July 2022] April Fool's: New design update for Canada.ca We’ve heard you #GCDigital. Canada.ca is getting a brand-new design! [1 April 2022] Using task success data to improve user experience Evidence from the GC Task Success Survey can help support positive cultural change within your organization. [23 March 2022] Thinking of adding a chatbot? It's important to evaluate if a chatbot is the right fit for the people you serve. [7 February 2022] Design with humility Humility is an amazing driving force that will help you build better services. [7 December 2021] Avoid promotional carousels, improve web content People don't click on promotional carousels on Canada.ca. Learn how to design effective promotions. [8 October 2021] 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. [20 July 2021] 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. [10 May 2021] Thank you Team Canada.ca/coronavirus This massive effort was recognized yesterday with a Platinum Award at the 2021 CCO Awards Ceremony. [30 April 2021] 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. [8 April 2021] 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. [25 March 2021] 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. [1 March 2021] 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. [4 February 2021] 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. [18 December 2020] 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. [17 December 2020] Using interactive checklists to simplify eligibility criteria In the last couple of years, the Canada.ca Experience Office (CEO) has been studying the use of interactive checklists to simplify the way we present eligibility criteria. [12 November 2020] Increasing transparency on Canada.ca The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s Digital Advisory Services (DAS) collaborated with the Canada.ca Experience Office (CEO) on design concepts to increase transparency. [28 October 2020] 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. [21 October 2020] 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. [9 October 2020] 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. [2 October 2020] 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. [24 September 2020] 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. [18 September 2020] 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. [28 August 2020] 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. [10 August 2020] Design research during a pandemic When the pandemic was confirmed in mid-March, the Canada.ca Experience Office had to rethink and change our approach so we could help departments respond quickly and effectively to the rapidly changing situation. [30 July 2020] Alert fatigue during COVID-19 The more you put into managing your alerts, the more effective they’ll be at communicating your message. [15 July 2020] 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. [5 June 2020] 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. [26 May 2020] Avoiding FAQs, with one exception Why FAQs are an ineffective content design choice most of the time, and when they can actually work. [25 May 2020] 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. [6 March 2020] Finding the right method to measure online task success What we learned about exit surveys, usability testing and analytics funnels. [5 February 2020] Optimize your content for voice search What we learned about improving voice services for Canadians. [28 January 2020] 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. [20 December 2019] 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! [15 November 2019] Content design tips from our Travel advice and advisories and Contact the CRA optimization projects In the winter of 2019, the Canada.ca Experience Office (CEO) 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. [1 November 2019] Six content design tips from our Student loans and Parental benefits optimization projects In the fall of 2018, the Canada.ca Experience Office (CEO) 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. [26 August 2019] Finding a government job…it should be so easy… The Public Service Commission worked with the Canada.ca Experience Office (CEO) and other partners over the summer to optimize the task of finding a government job on the Canada.ca website. [23 May 2019] About the Canada.ca design update Canada.ca hadn’t had a significant update to its design in over five years. In 2019, the Canada.ca Experience Office led an exercise to modernize and simplify the trusted digital brand, based on evidence and testing with over 4000 people. [29 March 2019] 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. [4 February 2019] 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%. [18 October 2018] 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 Canada.ca Experience Office (CEO) to make tax information on Canada.ca easie…