Background, vision and mission: Guidelines for health data and dashboards on Canada.ca

Everything you need to know about the process of planning, designing and building a dashboard to illustrate health data.

Background

Digital Communications at Health Canada and the Public Health Infobase team at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) collaborated closely during the COVID-19 pandemic to integrate detailed data and innovative dashboards on Canada.ca.

Integrating data and dashboards into user-friendly web content is a complex process and requires a collaborative effort. It involves input from stakeholders including provinces and territories, epidemiologists, data scientists, plain language writers, user experience experts, web developers and translators. Many steps are needed to create a web product that is clear and useful for health experts, decision makers and the public.

This document has been developed in consultation with data experts from HC and PHAC.

The intent of this document is to:

1. help respond to increased demand for data from the public, senior decision makers and stakeholders
2. share best practices and establish clear guidelines on developing accessible, public-facing data and dashboards that are easy to understand and use and meet Canada.ca web standards
3. plan and prioritise data projects that are agile, responsive and focused, given various capacity constraints
4. streamline processes to ensure consistent health data design across digital products and web pages

Vision

To position Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada as leaders in the design and dissemination of reliable, accessible and usable health data.

Mission

Develop web standards and best practices to guide the development of tools, designs and products for all public-facing data and dashboard products.

Data strategy and digital communications objectives

Data strategy refers to the tools, processes and rules that define how to manage, analyze and act upon collected data. A data strategy helps you to make informed decisions based on your data.

Our data strategy aims to:

• align digital best practices with strategic communication goals and program policy requirements
• proactively release timely data
• continuously improve content to help people interpret the data (strategic, phased approach, evolving data)
• be the authoritative and trusted source of health data and information from a national perspective
• work collaboratively with partners (programs, other governmental departments (OGD), epidemiologists, digital communications, P/Ts, digital developers)

Our digital communications objectives for data include:

• working collaboratively with HC and PHAC partners to develop standards for a consistent approach across government
• supporting data-driven decision making
• building public trust through openness, transparency and design consistency
• promoting good public health
• combatting misinformation with official, credible sources of data
• publishing on different platforms for different audiences, including:
  • Canada.ca
  • Public Health Infobase
  • Open.canada.ca
  • Social media (promotion)
  • Other applications (ex. WeatherCAN/Thrive, COVID trends)

Criteria for a good data project:

• simplifies complex information through visualisations
• appeals to users
• aligns with government objectives
• is a top task
• involves data which will evolve over time (illustrates trends)
• is sufficiently resourced to maintain and update data regularly, prototyping, test and track user feedback
• chooses the data approach (i.e., interactive or static) that will most effectively present the data
• is scalable to allow for data to evolve over time