The Scottish Government has updated the Digital First Service Standard for the development of country’s public sector digital services.
It has changed the name to the Digital Scotland Service Standard and reduced the number of criteria from 22 to 14, saying the remaining ones have also been simplified.
They cover familiar principles including understanding user needs, designing a joined up experience, ensuring everyone can use the service, bringing together a multi-disciplinary team, iterating and improving a new service, and making the source code open.
The digital directorate said the new guidance will help organisations understand what each criteria means at each stage of delivery, which should help in the planning of projects and preparations for assessments.
“By building on existing best practice, we think the new standard will help us move closer to our goal of inclusive, accessible and joined up public services,” it said in a blogpost.
The directorate added that a new, risk based approach to assessment with the standard is under development, with the Digital Assurance Office planning to write to organisations in April with the details.
It is also planning to work with organisations to ensure it is consistent in the application of the standard.
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