Government digital experience standards

Based on public policy, web protocol, guidelines and best practices.

Indicators Standard Why Guidance
Site is available for indexing by well-behaved agents.
Allows AI bots to find and index your pages, helping your content appear in search results and reach more people.
Page main content is available in initial document.
Ensures search engines can read and index the content within a document, making it discoverable and improving visibility online.
Common accessibility best practices.
Follows guidelines that make websites usable for everyone, including people with disabilities, improving user experience and reach.
Accessibility properties for screen readers.
Provides extra information for screen readers, helping visually impaired users understand content and navigate websites more easily.
Alternative text, captions, and transcripts.
Supports accessibility by adding captions and transcripts, helping users with hearing impairments understand audio and video content.
Difference between text and background colors.
Improves readability by ensuring text stands out from the background, helping users with visual impairments see content clearly.
Ensure hidden elements are accessible.
Prevents search engines and users from accessing unnecessary content, improving page performance and ensuring only relevant information is displayed.
Use correct language attributes for accessibility.
Specifies the language of content, helping screen readers and browsers display text correctly for users in different languages.
Descriptive identifiers for elements.
Clarifies content by providing clear names and labels, helping users understand and navigate forms or buttons easily.
Application keyboard navigation.
Enables users with motor disabilities to navigate apps efficiently using only the keyboard, improving accessibility and speed.
Ensure tables and lists are accessible.
Improves access by making tables and lists easier to navigate for users with disabilities.
Describes webpage content in a few words.
Identifies the page's content, helping users and search engines understand it quickly.
Describes webpage content in a few words.
Describes page content briefly, helping users understand what to expect and improving search engine results.
Makes websites fit all screen sizes.
Optimizes page display for various devices, ensuring content looks good on all screen sizes and enhances user experience.
Ratio of image width to height.
Ensures images display correctly without distortion on different screens and devices.
Correct code to identify language.
Ensures websites display text in the correct language, making content easier to understand for users.
Making images bigger or smaller.
Allows users to adjust size for better readability, improving accessibility and making content easier to view on all devices.
Tells browser how to read code.
Helps browsers display web pages correctly by telling them what kind of HTML code the page is using.
Character set for text encoding.
Helps computers show words and symbols correctly in different languages and on different devices.
Privacy and integrity protection.
Secures data by encrypting communication, protecting user privacy and preventing unauthorized access to sensitive information during online interactions.
One domain works with www and non-www.
Ensures consistent site display whether users type with or without 'www,' preventing errors and improving overall accessibility.
Sponsored top-level domain (.gov / .edu / .mil).
Defines trusted website categories, helping users identify official sites and improving credibility and security for specific organizations.
Measures unexpected webpage content shifts.
Minimizes unexpected page movements, improving user experience by keeping content stable while it loads.
The page begins to display within 1.8 seconds.
Measures how quickly important content appears, improving user experience by reducing wait time when loading a page.
Page responds in under 0.2 seconds.
A fast response time increases interactivity and user satisfaction, leading to a more engaging experience.
Major content loads in 2.5 seconds.
Measures when the main content fully loads, improving user experience by showing the most important part of a page quickly.
Code received in 0.8 seconds.
Measures how quickly a server responds, impacting page load speed and user experience by reducing wait times.
The HTTP status of /sitemap.xml is OK.
Confirms the sitemap is accessible, ensuring search engines can easily find and index all pages on the site.
The sitemap file type is XML.
Stores site structure in a readable format, helping search engines efficiently crawl and index all website pages.
Sitemap has all pages on website designated.
Ensures search engines can find and index every page, improving website visibility and search ranking.
The site has a valid robots policy.
Guides search engines on which pages to crawl or avoid, ensuring important content is indexed and irrelevant pages aren't.
The robots policy allows access to browsers and scrapers.
Permits search engines and web tools to access content, helping improve search visibility and gather relevant data.
The robots.txt file points to a sitemap file.
Helps search engines find the sitemap quickly, improving how they discover and index website pages.
Use preferred page URLs to avoid duplication.
Prevents duplicate content issues by telling search engines which version of a page is the main one.
Links have descriptive text.
Describes the link’s purpose clearly, helping users know where it leads and improving navigation for everyone.
Specifies language and region for webpages.
Indicates page language and region, helping users see the right version and improving search results in different countries.
The site restricts what can be loaded.
Helps stop hackers by blocking harmful code from running on your website.
Site upgrades to a secure connection.
Forces secure connections, protecting user data by making websites always load with encryption.
The site has a security.txt file.
Provides contact info for reporting security issues, helping site owners fix problems quickly and keep users safe.
The site prevents mime type sniffing.
Stops browsers from guessing file types, helping prevent security risks by enforcing correct content handling.
Tracks mistakes in code for debugging.
Signals problems in website code, helping developers fix issues that could affect how the site works or displays.
Stops fake clicks on hidden content.
Prevents malicious websites from tricking users into clicking hidden elements, enhancing site security and protecting user actions.
Page doesn't allow copy-paste into inputs.
Negatively impacts user experience and weakens security by blocking password managers.
Website title for social sharing.
Sets the website's title for social media sharing, ensuring consistent branding and better previews when content is shared.
Content category for social media.
Specifies content type for social media, improving how links are displayed and enhancing engagement when shared online.
Page title for social sharing.
Sets a clear title for shared content, ensuring accurate and engaging previews on social media platforms.
Short description of your webpage content.
Provides a brief summary of content, helping users understand what the link is about when shared on social media.
Canonical link for social sharing.
Defines the URL of the shared content, ensuring correct linking and improving how the page is displayed on social media.
Preview image for social sharing.
Sets an image for social media previews, improving engagement by displaying relevant visuals when content is shared.
Image description for accessibility
Provides a description for the image, improving accessibility and helping search engines understand the image content.
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