The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) commissioned this research as part of its Service Modernisation Roadmap. The goal was to gather evidence to help update the Digital Service Design Standard (DSDS) and create a new Digital Accessibility Standard (DAS). The research focused on:

• Finding the common barriers that stop government digital services from meeting service design and accessibility standards.
• Learning from both the people who deliver government services (like public servants and suppliers) and the people who use the — specially disabled people and their representative organisations.
• Understanding how to help government agencies and suppliers use the standards more effectively and deliver more accessible services.

The research took place from late March to early August 2025. A range of methods were used to collect data.

Process

The research was a joint effort between Ackama and DIA. Together, they developed the research questions and chose the best ways to gather insights.

The methods used included:

• Surveys — to collect data from a wide group of people.
• Workshops — to solve problems together with select groups.
• One-on-one interviews — to hear personal stories and experiences.

A total of 127 people took part in workshops and interviews, and 119 completed surveys. Participants included:

• 70 people from more than 20 central and local government agencies
• 5 private sector suppliers
• 4 subject matter experts
• 2 leaders from Whaikaha — Ministry of Disabled People
• 18 Whaikaha employees with lived experience of disability
• 28 disabled people and representatives from six Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs).

Findings

The research found a big gap between the intention to deliver good services and what actually happens. Key issues include:

• Lack of leadership support — Leaders often say they support accessibility, but do not provide the resources, time, or accountability needed to make it happen.
• Funding and culture problems — Rigid, project-based funding models and siloed work practices make it hard to improve and maintain services over time.
• Poor procurement processes — Government often chooses suppliers without checking that they can deliver accessible services.
• System-level barriers — Many staff are not confident that their organisations can deliver accessible services. Only 22% of organisations test directly with disabled people.
• Challenges applying service design principles — Teams creating services struggle with measuring service performance, planning for ongoing delivery, and building for everyone equally.
• Exclusion of disabled people — Disabled people still face many barriers and inaccessible services. Feedback systems are unclear and ineffective, which makes people feel ignored.
• Barriers to employment — Internal government tools are often inaccessible, making it hard for disabled staff to work independently and with dignity.
• Duplicated effort — Without a shared government design system, teams waste time and money by repeating work and creating inconsistent user experiences.

Recommendations

The research resulted in 25 recommendations to improve standards, processes, resources, training, and accountability. Some of the most important ones are:

• Train leaders — Help leaders understand and prioritise accessibility and service design standards.
• Support practitioners — Provide centralised tools, resources, and training for professionals working on digital services.
• Use plain language — Write the DSDS and DAS in plain language where possible, including clear definitions and align with international standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and EN 301 549.
• Improve procurement — Offer guidance on how to assess and choose suppliers that can deliver well-designed, usable and accessible services.
• Build it in from the start — Provide templates and guidance for including accessibility and usability in project planning, budgeting, and delivery.
• Share success stories — Publish case studies of accessible and usable services to show what good looks like. Include details on processes, activities, results, budgets, and how people were allocated.
• Make standards mandatory — Mandate and enforce the standards to ensure all government services are accessible and usable.
• Create a central support team — Set up an All-of-Government team to provide advice, testing, and help with user engagement.
• Provide a consistent user experience — Make interacting with government services familiar and predictable especially when identifying oneself.
• Deliver examples of leading accessible and usable services — Start with small projects that show DIA’s commitment to accessible and usable services.

Next steps

This research will be used to plan future activities for the DSDS and the DAS.

DSDS

The goal is to publish a first full draft of the updated Digital Service Design Standard (DSDS) for online consultation in early 2026 on Digital.govt.nz. Feedback from consultation will be added before the Government Chief Digital Officer (GCDO) approves publishing the final DSDS in mid-2026.

DAS

The next steps for the Digital Accessibility Standard (DAS) are to:

• write the new standard
• create the programme of support to help agencies meet it.

The new DAS will be written with input from stakeholders.

The programme of support is not finished yet, but it will involve a range of activities informed by the recommendations in this report.