LO
ConstraintCognitive automation2026-02-09
Canada's government design guidance requires AI help tools on Canada.ca to be labelled as AI and to cite an authoritative source in every answer, bans human names, and asks for early user testing
Product / UX designeroccupation page →
Event date / reported
2026-02-09
Evidence stage
ConstraintFailure, rollback, regulation or cost is suppressing adoption. Can lower an assessment or widen its uncertainty.
Tasks this bears on
Research and usability testing
Watching users struggle, running interviews, reading the analytics, and turning what you saw into a decision.
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backed
Designing for non-deterministic products
Shaping products whose output varies — conversational interfaces, agents, generated content — where the old screen-by-screen craft does not apply.
New task✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
The Government of Canada's design system guidance for AI help applications on its main website. It says AI help applications must be clearly labelled as AI; all in-scope answers must include at least one authoritative citation link, pointing to a Government of Canada page wherever possible; teams must not give the application a human name or call it a chat or chatbot; warning users that AI makes mistakes is not a replacement for measuring accuracy; and UX researchers should be involved early to test design prototypes with potential end users, followed by iterative usability testing. It binds one government's website, and the testing guidance is 'should'.
What this means
Designing a generative feature for the public now comes with written rules in at least one government: say it is AI, show where every answer comes from, do not dress it as a person, and test it with real users early. That is design work of a new kind, specified in detail.
What it does not yet show
One government's guidance for its own website; it does not show how product teams elsewhere design AI features.
What you can check
Open the Canada.ca guidance for the design of AI help applications and find "All in-scope answers must include at least one authoritative citation link to the source material".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. Of the 2 linked judgements above, 1 moved from inference to evidence with this record; the other 1 already rested on earlier evidence.
Source
Canada.ca Experience Office, Government of Canada — Guidance for the design of AI help applications on Canada.ca (design guidance, content guidance and iterative design pages; date modified 2026-02-09) · verified 2026-09-28 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-28 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.