We build for everyone

When planning out digital government services, our GovTech teams go beyond the usual product brief with the idea of “Designing for the 100%” to consider accessibility use cases for digital inclusion. As more services become digital, by ensuring accessibility wider than the majority, we will be able to provide better user experiences for everyone.

Here’s some GovTech products with strong accessibility features

Singpass

Singpass is a mobile app that is designed to make transacting with government and businesses faster and easier for all Singpass users.

What has the team done to make the app inclusive?

• Using QR Login, users can scan a QR code and verify their identity with biometrics or a 6-digit pin code. This helps users with dexterity issues transact with ease and reduces the need to remember long passwords.
• Shortcuts to commonly used services within the app ensures no mistyping of URLs when visiting different government digital services
• The team also enabled high contrast for improved legibility and readability when using the app
• SafeEntry(www.safeentry.gov.sg) features in the app was developed with accessibility in mind, and tested extensively with VoiceOver and Voice Control for the visually and physically handicapped respectively.

Isomer

Isomer is a static website builder for public officers to easily launch informational sites.

Isomer’s Target Audience:

Isomer’s audience include (a) content creators (public officers in comms and marketing, policy officers and IT department) as well as software vendors who partner government agencies (b) content consumers (Singaporean citizens from all walks of life who visit Isomer-built websites)

What has the team done to make Isomer more inclusive?

• Standard template for users to launch their websites in an easy and fast manner
• The team baked in as many accessibility features into Isomer as possible by default.

For example, the Isomer template provides a selection of predefined font sizes and weights that cater to persons with low vision. Content editors can focus on content, knowing the font size issue is well addressed.

• While the team was not able to set the use of alternate text for images or a minimum color contrast ratio, they overcame these challenges by creating documentation guides for easy referencing of accessibility guidelines.

Singapore Government Design System (SGDS)

The Singapore Government Design System (SGDS) was developed to unite teams in creating fast, accessible and mobile friendly digital services with a common set of UI components that comply to the Digital Service Standards.

SGDS’s Target Audience:

Government Agency Users, Vendors and the Public (to a certain extent, everything is open source)

What has the team done to make SGDS more inclusive?

• Baseline accessibility checks along with the team’s own a11y tool.
• Created patterns with base accessibility built in.
• Provided guidelines to help users.

MyCareersFuture (MCF)

MyCareersFuture helps match jobseekers to suitable employers and job opportunities based on their skills.

MCF’s Target Audience:

• Users include jobseekers and employers.
• The primary intention was to support jobseekers in need of help such as mature Professionals, Managers, Executives, Technicians (PMETs) or mid-career switchers but we are really open to all citizens and PRs.
• We also serve employers who are looking to hire locals for their jobs.

What has the team done to make MCF more inclusive?

• Linters are used to automatically flag issues that can reliably be detected in that way e.g an image without the alt attribute, or a “button” implemented using <div onclick=… /> which prevents it from being activated using a keyboard.
• The team required accessibility as an acceptance criteria of new features e.g, the ability to navigate a list of notifications via a keyboard, triggering them and marking them read.
• Holding informal audits to see if important user flows can be accomplished with a keyboard, and fixing critical bugs.