Choosing and writing tasks for the GC Task Success Survey: Canada.ca design

On this page

• What is a task
• What tasks should we measure
• Best practices when writing tasks

What is a task

A task is what people come to your content to do. That can mean getting answers, like learning about a subject, or performing a transaction, like applying for a program.

Top tasks should reflect what visitors are coming to the site to do, rather than departmental priorities.

What tasks should we measure

For the GC Task Success Survey, you should only include your institution’s top tasks.

Your top tasks are generally those that represent 80% of the visits to your content.

A very focused organization may only have one top task while another institution might have 10, 20, or more tasks in the top 80% of their traffic.

The maximum number of tasks per level is 30.

Best practices when writing tasks

The purpose of these recommendations is to make tasks easy to scan and understand for everyone who participates in the GC Task Success Survey.

Focus on the name of the task or service

Add a verb if it is essential to the meaning of the task

Make tasks descriptive enough to be understood when read on their own

Front load with keywords about the task or service

Services and products

• Search tenders for government contracts
• Incorporate a business
• Permanent Resident Card (get, renew, replace)
• Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB)

Services (where multiple tasks are included at the same level)

• EI (Employment Insurance) - Check eligibility
• EI (Employment Insurance) - Apply
• EI (Employment Insurance) - Submit reporting form

Use standardized wording for common types of tasks

Opt for navigation-oriented terms rather than ability-related terms like “see, view”

Avoid complex words when there are simpler alternative

Use “find” and “get”for the right circumstances

Find

Lead with “find” when:

• referring to a physical location
• looking up a specific piece of data out of a dataset

Get

Lead with “get” when:

• referring to getting a specific thing like a form, physical object, document, or publication