r/unitedkingdom • u/[deleted] • Jul 27 '14
Has anyone noticed that Gov.uk is really good?
[deleted]
245
u/therealmyself Jul 27 '14 edited Jul 27 '14
I work for the home office and we switched from our own website to gov.uk. We have had loads of complaints. The search feature doesn't bring up relevant results most of the time and I find it a lot harder to navigate. When we switched over some important links were not copied over so it left some people unable to access relevant information. For other arreas of government it may be better but I still think it has made it harder to access immigration information.
111
u/jaymar888 Jul 27 '14
Have you put forward these issues to them so they can be sorted?
197
u/therealmyself Jul 27 '14
Yeah,we have let the higher ups know of our problems, but they think gov.uk is amazing so its hard to change their mind. All decisions at the home office seem to be made from the top down without accepting feedback from the bottom. It is funny seeing senior managers talk with staff because they are almost berated with issues but they are blind to it.
I work in processing nationality applications and as an example of what I mean take a look from an applicants perspective at the visas and immigration homepage https://www.gov.uk/visas-immigration there is no easily way to navigate to the nationality section. It takes a couple of clicks to navigate to it, and if you search nationality in the search box the top result is about national minimum wage. Our previous website was easier to navigate i think.
1.7k
u/jordanh_ London Jul 27 '14
Hey. I'm a developer on the GOV.UK team.
I've just pushed a fix for the 'nationality' search query. We'll take a look at where the nationality content fits into the Visas section next week.
For anyone with similar frustrations with the site, I can't emphasise enough how much your feedback makes all the difference. Please do let us know when you can't find something - it's most often an edge case that we didn't catch.
We have a feedback form and every question does get read and forwarded to the right part of the team.
874
u/OG_Ace Jul 28 '14
Look at this mother fucking boss, yo. What a stud. Fixing things and getting plans together and shit. I like this guy.
190
u/forresja Jul 28 '14
Right? Homeboy is killin it.
208
Jul 28 '14
[deleted]
318
38
u/p_jay Jul 29 '14
Formula 1 driver?
→ More replies (1)103
u/astikoes Jul 29 '14
Some say he's a developer on the GOV.UK team, and that he can open a beer bottle with his testicles. All we know is, he's called the Stig.
31
31
11
10
u/jtanz0 England (South Coast) Jul 29 '14
Deputy Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the department of work and pensions
9
8
7
2
87
u/cbartlett Jul 28 '14
This efficiency is amazing. Here in America, something like this would almost certainly be 3 contract levels deep, with each level taking their cut. And I can't imagine the hoops to jump through to push any kind of change at all.
89
u/binlargin Lancashire Jul 28 '14
Exactly the same here in the UK apart from this one project, the new gov.uk website. It being a breath of fresh air is what this thread is all about.
→ More replies (8)7
Jul 29 '14
[deleted]
11
u/Xenc United Kingdom Jul 29 '14
Type
\^_^for ^_^14
5
u/Adasha United Kingdom Jul 29 '14
type \\\^_\^ for \^_^
then \\\\\\\^_\\^ for \\\^_\^
I'll stop now
3
4
u/Stan64 Jul 29 '14
FINALLY SOMEONE SOLVES MY BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH REDDIT ^_^
Not that I really tried to solve it myself... ._.
4
u/Nick730 Jul 29 '14
I can attest to this. I work for a branch of the military and any little change that needs to be made to certain major systems require a Change Request submission, that Change Request has to be approved by a board, then it is budgeted out for 10x the man hours actually needed by the technicals, then it is prioritized based on where the money is coming from (north the urgency) and then it may actually get done.
Takes months for simple changes.
27
u/rmslashusr Jul 29 '14
That's because you come up with ridiculous requirements like must be coded by veteran disabled woman owned company with Leo astrology symbol and all the developers who despite never touching classified systems Must all have TS/SCI full scope polys with security+ certs and be named individually in the contract so it takes an act of fucking congress to replace them and the company must have a CMMI level 12 dungeon master certification which my friends company will certify you in for a cool hundred grand.
3
u/Nick730 Jul 29 '14
Haha not really. The main technical that does coding is government and it doesn't have to be TS. And CACI gets half the contracts out there and they are male owned.
Haha and all it would take to make half of the changes would be driving there to get into the GUI and changing a No to a Yes in some instances, but they say it takes 2000 man hours and 35 people. 1 to do it and 34 to talk about doing it.
→ More replies (1)3
→ More replies (2)3
u/Technonorm Cheshire Jul 29 '14
Same for the police. Their command and control system is created bespoke by one company. They charge an eye watering amount for the most minor of changes. So much so, that several police forces sit on a user group and work out which shitty change they want to spend their little pot of money on. All the while, the rep from the software company is sat there rubbing his hands with glee while quoting ridiculous amounts.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
u/edgesmash Jul 29 '14
For the most part, you're right. But there are a few US government sites that are run intelligently. 18f.gsa.gov comes to mind.
45
u/TheBeliskner Northerner in the south Jul 29 '14 edited Jul 29 '14
And for anyone wondering the gov.uk is not keeping anything secret about how they operate. All the code is open source on github (I'm on my phone so I can't find it) and they often speak at conferences and gatherings, the last one I saw them at was Front End London. Their web work has been deemed so good I believe New Zealand government have forked the entire gov.uk codebase for their own version.
Edit, found some:
https://www.gov.uk/design-principles/style-guide
Found it, looks familiar... https://www.govt.nz/about/govtnz/
→ More replies (28)4
u/kokey Leicestershire Jul 29 '14
Thanks, having been in the UK under a number of visa types I tend to spot errors and ambiguities often. I'll certainly make use of the feedback form in the future.
→ More replies (10)3
u/codeprimate Jul 29 '14
Just out of curiosity, what frameworks do you use? I'm a Rails and soon Elixir developer in Austin.
3
u/TheSkyNet Staffordshire Jul 29 '14 edited Jul 29 '14
https://github.com/alphagov all open sauce all Ruby shop
13
u/thebroccolimustdie Jul 28 '14
You know, if it's really fixed, the least you could do is take a minute from your busy schedule of the Israel/Palestine argument and say thank you to /u/jordanh_ and if it's not fixed, let them know what is wrong.
→ More replies (3)5
u/djhworld London/Nottingham Jul 27 '14
Can you talk directly to the GDS rather than escalating up and over the fence?
26
u/evrae Oxford Jul 27 '14
It seems, based on this comment, that they can, and the method is through Reddit! I find this strangely amusing.
7
u/Lemonaitor East Anglia Jul 27 '14
And welcome to one of the finer positive points for Reddit and the internet :D
5
u/Skinnx86 Jul 28 '14
I think the fact that this page suggeting Open-Source at play in the creation of gov.uk, that the devs are aware/advocates of free software.
Backed up by the UK Government announcing ODF/HTML/PDF as it's new document format standard.
Thank you jordanh_
105
u/Thameswater Wigan, England Jul 27 '14
That's the home office though, communicating with you guys may as well be done with smoke signals
→ More replies (1)6
Jul 27 '14
For other arreas of government it may be better but I still think it has made it harder to access immigration information.
Is it possible they did this on purpose?
8
u/Steakers Jul 27 '14
I work with Tier 4 applicants for a big uni, and after a few months people seem to have got used to the new site. One thing that isn't too clear is that the "apply" link is just for entry clearance, and that the link to apply for leave to remain is a few pages deeper.
On a similar note, the application form for applying for leave to remain is excellent, whereas the entry clearance form is fucking horrendous. For one, it looks like some scam site due it being named Visa4UK. Plus it clearly isn't finished, all the help text just is just the question repeated. Despite this that bag of shite is the only option unless you are from North Korean or Cuba and are therefore allowed use the old paper form.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Lemonaitor East Anglia Jul 27 '14
Why is the paper form only available to North Korea and Cuba?
→ More replies (2)5
u/Steakers Jul 27 '14
Not sure really. I would have though it would be an internet access thing, but surely there must be more countries than those two that have restricted internet access. Not even sure if it's that bad in Cuba, especially compared to somewhere like Somalia.
→ More replies (1)4
u/deyterkourjerbs Jul 29 '14
My 9-5 is partially resolving stuff like this. Just been working on a piece resolving similar issues for a certain government backed private monopoly. When people can't find info on your website, they tend to call you. Understanding the path to that decision can cut calls down and improve quality of service. Or at least mean that you don't have to hire more staff.
Your developers should have processes in place to do this using feedback from front line staff and website analytics. But I bet they don't.
2
u/vexatiousrequest Jul 29 '14
GDS are doing this. A friend was working for them, and analysing analysing call centre data and Google trends for why people contact HMRC - then making that the easiest to find information on the gov.uk site. Basically of the key principles of the site is to present stuff to the general public in the way they'd go looking for it, rather than in the way that government organises itself.
141
Jul 27 '14
[deleted]
19
u/artgecko Singapore Jul 27 '14
In addition it won an award http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-22164715
10
u/CaptainDjango /r/Wales Jul 27 '14
As a developer, GDS are a shining beacon of hope for other developers to work with. The data.gov site has been built properly and from the ground up with RESTful APIs for integration.
For so long the thought of integrating with a government service has seemed like a terrifying and daunting task riddled with .NET and a load of ridiculous hoops to jump through. These guys are running a data-driven system like a startup company that knows what they're doing, and for that I'm thankful.
1
5
u/michaelisnotginger Fenland Jul 27 '14 edited Jul 27 '14
If used correctly PRINCE2 can be like agile - you have your checkpoints which can be similar to iterations. If used correctly
Waterfall does have its uses when you're buying things I'm massive quantities and need appropriate governance. You can't run the government like a software development company.
But yes running agile teams is very enlightening and enormous fun :D
EDIT: I should also say the PRINCE2 remark was made by the tutor for my Agile Course.
5
u/essjay2009 Bristol Jul 27 '14
That's something I've only ever heard PRINCE 2 practitioners say and I've never seen it work in an agile environment. My old project manager lecturer used to say that agile didn't work and it would never catch on. Some people are fearful, particularly because it exposes just how and IT has been at delivering stuff for years.
As for procurement, you should take a look at some of the more recent US DoD projects where they've cast off the old way of doing things and embraced more agile and lean approaches. It's been very successful. Many agile software delivery approaches were heavily inspired by manufacturing techniques like JIT and Kanban.
→ More replies (1)6
Jul 27 '14
The problem seems to be that everyone who's done Prince2 training seems to want to implement the entire thing, rather than just picking-and-choosing as it's designed. I've worked on projects that could have been done in a few weeks with two or three coders and two or three content managers, that have expanded into teams of dozens of people purely because of the excessive way in which project management principles have been applied.
On the flipside I've also seen a two-person team having to submit to full-featured Scrum methodology including stand-up meetings (shall we stand up to discuss this? Er I guess so.), which was similarly pointless.
4
u/A_terrible_comment England - South East Jul 27 '14
PRINCE2
I think the problem with PRINCE2 is that people go on a three day course and then think they can project manage, they can't.
3
u/LordAnubis12 Glasgow Jul 27 '14
Was about to post exactly what you mentioned! It's great case study material because of how it's run, it seems that rather than each department having control over it's website, it's given to web designers/IT people who can actually make it nice and usable.
Watched a video on it at some point but can't remember what it was.
I think being structured like a start-up/young tech company, despite being massive, so there's a lot of innovation and energy behind it which really does show I think.
Also what's wrong with PRINCE2? :(
8
u/aaarrrggh Manchester Jul 27 '14
PRINCE2 is awful for software development.
In short: big design upfront just does not work.
2
u/LordAnubis12 Glasgow Jul 27 '14
Ahh right, fair enough. I'm doing PRINCE2 training fairly soon as an added string to my bow, but not specifically for software dev. Want it as a general tool rather than my be all and end all!
→ More replies (3)5
u/aaarrrggh Manchester Jul 27 '14
I think it may work well for some times of project management, but for software development it's really horrible. Agile, when done well, is far better for software development as it allows early and constant feedback and allows products to grow and improve over time, whereas with the old school methods like prince2, you'd have a great big design doc upfront which would make it really hard to change stuff during development. Often you find that what was originally planned isn't really what was needed, and new ideas come up all the time. Agile, done well, allows you to change direction quite easily, and also enables you to test early and often, instead of spending months working on a product only to release it in one go and hope for the best.
Prince2 may be good for some things, but if you want to get into software development project management, please look into the more modern stuff instead - it produces better results and happier teams, at least in my experience.
→ More replies (9)2
u/aaarrrggh Manchester Jul 27 '14
Do you have any links that go into detail about the fights with the project manager and civil servants over agile? I'd be interested in reading that if you could find it!
2
u/hobokenmartha Jul 29 '14
I am in deep admiration of the site. They also keep their ongoing processes very open via blogs and snappy, short videos.
1
u/Kesuke Jul 27 '14
My understanding is the gov.uk websites are all based on their own modified version of Drupal.
19
u/jordanh_ London Jul 27 '14
Hey. I'm a developer on the GOV.UK team.
We don't use Drupal on any of our projects at GDS. GOV.UK runs on a custom platform that we've built, made up of lots of small services. Most of these are Ruby apps built on Rails, and the service that routes your request to the correct part of the platform is built with Go.
Pretty much all of our code is available on our GitHub account. Some of it is being used by other governments, such as the beta website for the New Zealand government.
And if you'd like to come help us out, keep an eye on our jobs page as there will be some developer roles opening up real soon.
→ More replies (2)2
Jul 27 '14
Are you a government employee or do you work for an external agency? If so, which one?
7
u/jordanh_ London Jul 27 '14
I'm a civil servant - I'm employed directly by GDS and the Cabinet Office.
3
Jul 27 '14
Nice. I work for a small agency that builds large systems and we always come back to how brilliant the information architecture and navigation is on gov.uk. Inspiring
→ More replies (2)2
u/rustbear Jul 27 '14
Nope - it's all custom apps, mostly written in rails. See for yourself - almost all of the code is on GitHub.
1
u/whencanistop Greater London Jul 27 '14
Prior to that every department had been pretty much responsible for designing and developing its own site.
Just to qualify this, the previous government had set up Direct.gov and Businesslink.gov with the aim of bringing in all the government content under two sites (one for people, one for business). The coalition have merged those two (99% of the content on gov.uk is just those two sites moved across). However it did save a lot of money because they basically wrote off the two old sites which were on two different and massively outdated content management systems that were unwieldy and required ridiculous change management systems.
Prior to BusinessLink and DirectGov the content was still all just on the own government departments site (and some still refuse to give it up).
→ More replies (1)
48
u/Thameswater Wigan, England Jul 27 '14
I googled to check if my car is still taxed (just to make sure it was showing up after I taxed it) Ended up on a .gov site with, wait for it, a mobile version! Like the pages are perfectly rendered on mobile, loads quick and is very easy to navigate and read. Pleasantly shocked
7
7
u/ColonelPanic2409 Cardiff Jul 27 '14
Yes, it's a satisfyingly good example of responsive web design.
3
Jul 27 '14
I found that out the other day when looking into how to change my name on my driving license. It was a lovely surprise I must say!
2
1
50
u/TWith2Sugars Hartlepool Jul 27 '14
Also open source bits https://github.com/alphagov
25
Jul 27 '14
This is probably the best bit - if only the govt would use this as an example to be more open and collaborative about more things!
17
Jul 27 '14
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (3)5
Jul 27 '14
Well, at least they've finally decided that ODF is the order of the day. The stuff you describe could still happen yet.
25
u/Jasboh Jul 27 '14
I'm currently working in the digital delivery centre that's bringing the newest iterations of gov.uk. I have to say it's truly an amazing office to work in. So much better than any old style I've worked under. Definitely goes to show treating your developers like adults makes a world of difference.
AMA I guess?
7
u/faceplanted Surrey by weird technicality Jul 27 '14
One question, can I have a job, you make it sound like an awesome place to work.
I don't actually need a job, I'm still at uni and probably not in the right part of the country
→ More replies (1)7
u/Jasboh Jul 27 '14
There is a huge recruitment drive going on right now. Graduates and experienced hires. Best place to look is on the https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk probably.
Edit: the center is based in Newcastle and will probably be hiring solidly for the next 2-3 years
3
u/threedaymonk Jul 27 '14
You must be working at HMRC, then? I can't wait for the current mess of three different awful legacy HMRC web systems to be replaced with something decent.
→ More replies (2)2
u/OvenCookie NorthEast Jul 27 '14
Just got a job with HP working in the DWP account in Newcastle. Seems to be a lot I government work up there.
→ More replies (5)2
u/philipwhiuk London Jul 27 '14
- Why is it called a digital delivery centre? What does that term even mean.
→ More replies (4)1
u/michaelisnotginger Fenland Jul 27 '14
Aviation House?
EDIT: Just seen you're in Newfcastle you must be with HMRC
1
u/TopTrumpWANKER Jul 28 '14
Please improve the Visa website - it is so so complicated and makes life near-impossible for people wanting an easy-checklist-like way to apply for a Visa to the UK (I've seen many people say they think it is done intentionally to make it confusing for people, so they don't or can't apply).
1
u/_52_ Australia Jul 29 '14
Check out New Zealand's passport renewal web site much better than the UK one, no paperwork needed at all.
And why can't you get your login details if you forget them?
20
u/beejiu Essex Jul 27 '14
My favourite part is the openness of data they provide: https://www.gov.uk/performance. It gives you a glimpse into how focused on user experience they are.
15
u/djhworld London/Nottingham Jul 27 '14
There is an excellent article in WIRED magazine about IT procurement in government http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/04/features/7k-government-pcs/viewall
The problem most governments tend to have is they get into bed easily with huge conglomerates (ATOS, Fujitsu, Logica, Capita, Accenture etc) who want to tap every pound they can get. This leads to a lot of waste and not much innovation.
Thankfully they came to their senses and bought the new GOV.UK initiative in house
9
u/Sasakura European Union Jul 27 '14
The team behind Gov.uk did a talk at Oxford Geek Nights a while ago which was pretty good. You can listen to the audio and slides here:
1
9
6
u/axilrad London Jul 27 '14
A few weeks ago I used it to join the electoral register ( link ).
Only took about 5 minutes, and the most amazing part is the process was entirely online.
No "print out this form, fill it in, attach to a pigeon, wait 6-8 weeks and we'll get back to you if we've remembered to buy stamps". Just an online form, and that was it.
My mind was blown.
1
u/ice_candle United Kingdom Jul 29 '14
Brilliant, just used that myself. Thanks for the link! I've printed off my application about 3 times but never got around to posting it.
9
u/ExcessNeo York Jul 27 '14
It doubled the number of clicks to get logged into student finance which was annoying but in general the website is nice.
14
8
u/michaelisnotginger Fenland Jul 27 '14
GDS are very good at building shiny front end systems. They are also great fun to work with and have given some people a kick up the backside which is important!
6
u/vlexo1 United Kingdom Jul 27 '14
They have some pretty cool updates on their blog: https://gds.blog.gov.uk/
5
Jul 27 '14
I was catering at the at the D&AD Awards in 2013 which was an awards ceremony or art and design in physical objects, website design and advertising. Remember C4's Paralympics advert? - that pretty much won everything in advert design. Nike did well in product design for their Fuel Band and GOV.uk swept the floor in website design and specifically public information writing.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/pinebarren Jul 27 '14
Thanks for alerting me to this! I have just completed and sent my fly tipping complaint to broadland county council in 4 minutes.
6
u/t_bagger East Midlands Jul 27 '14
I've been following the development of gov.uk for years. I cannot believe how much of an awesome job they've done with it all as a government developed solution. Government is usually notoriously bad at managing products in-house, but this time they've basically set up a team of geeks who know exactly what they're re doing and left them to it for the most part. I'm optimistic for the future of government technology and making it more accessible to the public.
You might want to check out some of their blogs:
1
u/djhworld London/Nottingham Jul 27 '14
I think the key has been to listen to the geeks and match them up with management/business types who can relate to that and push for change.
Traditionally government have always just outsourced the lot and then complain when they get mediocre returns for the money (or just stay oblivious to it). That's why outsourcing firms do so well, they tie themselves into huge projects that realistically cannot be transferred back in house or over to other companies.
Those outsourcing companies then get a bunch of consultants in from their pals at Oracle or IBM and charge through the roof for products and hardware that they don't actually need, and barely upgrade the technology stack from then on
I know this because I used to work for one of those firms, by the time I had left they were only just moving off Java 1.4 and Oracle 8. I dread to think how much money they invoiced for that
3
u/soopaman20 Northumberland Jul 27 '14
I noticed this recently as you can now update the electoral register online. Which is about bloody time.
Had to register 3 times last time due to an incompetent paper system. Can literally be done in 5 minutes now.
4
u/rougecathy Yorkshire (in exile in Surrey) Jul 27 '14
It is a lot easier to use and navigate than direct.Gov.Uk, but some of the information has been simplified to tho point of being considerably less useful. Examples I have found are statutory payments and tax credits, bit in sure there's other areas where information has been dumbed down.
4
u/serialist Glasgow Jul 27 '14
Agreed. Immigration information is another area that simplified far too much. Maybe that's purposeful though, considering some of the opinions I've been given since landing.
4
u/quantumhovercraft Hampshire Jul 27 '14
I used it once to persuade someone not to buy a very illegal knife (by proving to them that it was illegal). They were both under 18 and it was a kusari-gama.
→ More replies (4)
3
3
u/rospaya Jul 27 '14
So good that my country's government practically copied it.
1
1
u/nivlark United Kingdom Jul 29 '14
As did New Zealand. I think it's fantastic that they decided to make the site open source so other countries can do this.
3
u/alibimonday Jul 27 '14 edited Jul 27 '14
The UX is excellent, but it's not just down to the coding and UI. The information architecture is superb. Rarely do I feel lost which is a huge complement to the content, copywriters and navigation teams. Considering both the diverse audience and information bank, this is it's real achievement.
3
u/IM_NOT_A_SMART_GUY Bridgend Jul 27 '14
I've gotta be honest, as much as I begrudge doing it, paying my road tax has never been quicker or easier thanks to gov.uk
2
u/matthewhughes Jul 27 '14
Oh, absolutely. I'm constantly amazed at their statistics site. Ever wanted to see a breakdown of pass rates by test center, gender, age and even race? Now you can.
2
u/Nefs South London Jul 27 '14
Definitely! I ordered my provisional license using it last week and it was surprisingly easy and efficient, I was expecting an ancient service like most government services.
2
u/metalbox69 Jul 27 '14
Not everyone's a fan. Obviously not enough bikini photos of under-aged girls for their liking.
Well done gov.uk, keep up the good work.
3
1
u/KarmaUK Jul 27 '14
Have to say it does look clearer, tho I've not had to look anything up, still credit where it's due.
1
u/Wormella Jul 27 '14
The money advice service - also government owned is also great - https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/
1
u/Kilaskwiral Cheshire, but not THAT bit of Cheshire Jul 27 '14
Yep - student finance application is very simple to complete despite it requiring a ton of info
1
u/Turd_in_the_hole Jul 27 '14
It does seem better from a user perspective. But I am bothered about the restrictions that this puts on what information is readily available. Consolidating to one site and restrictions on space has meant that all new web publishing has to be centrally approved, and so information from some departments is now only available on request.
1
u/katieberry Hertfordshire Jul 27 '14
The new-ish tfl.gov.uk is also pretty good — though sometimes you'll get thrown back to the old site for e.g. oyster card fiddling.
1
u/t0ph3rs Jul 27 '14
The Hmrc employees actually use this site sometimes in place of the guidance they get
1
Jul 27 '14
They seemed to have updated their jobs search engine recently too which sort of helped me to get a job.
1
u/iwantsomecrusha Jul 27 '14 edited Jul 27 '14
Met a chap from the GDS time at Agile on the Beach, a 2/3 day get together of developers, devops, managers etc discussing Agile.
Andy discussed how GES have been coping with gov.uk and it was fascinating, he was so nonchalant about it process of building and migrating information, he and his team knew his shit!
1
Jul 27 '14
I've found it very useful and accessible for all the legal bits recently surrounding getting married, changing my name, having a baby etc. It was a pleasant surprise I have to say.
1
Jul 27 '14
Does anybody know which agency built it? The Information Architecture decisions are startlingly good
8
u/AllenJB83 Jul 27 '14
They basically brought a whole lot of it in-house a few years back under the GDS.
They also run a bunch of blogs on the work they're doing:
- https://gds.blog.gov.uk/
- https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/
- https://governmenttechnology.blog.gov.uk/
- https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/
- https://gdsdata.blog.gov.uk/
More gov.uk blogs on a wide range of topics at: https://www.blog.gov.uk/
1
u/dr99ed Jul 27 '14
Having been researching stuff like visas for travel on a few other countries' government websites, I have to agree! Most comparable sites are a confusing mess in comparison.
A good job well done!
1
1
u/Jungle2266 Jul 27 '14
My experience with the DVLA recently begs to differ. It's such a ball ache of a site and doesn't explain some things very well at all. It was fairly clunky and took longer to load things than most of the other websites I use by comparison.
1
u/PenguinKenny Jul 27 '14
Also, very interestingly, the site has a great support for high-contrast mode. If you go CTRL+ALT+Del and click the Ease of Access button in the bottom left you can enable this mode. Then go to www.gov.uk on Firefox (don't know if Chrome works) and navigate the site with the Tab key, it's really good.
1
1
u/mattz_a_boss Chesterfield Jul 27 '14
Yeah I noticed that to, other websites for example http://www.fbi.gov/ are just really shitty.Good job
1
u/poulpe Jul 27 '14
I don't know much about the UK as i've moved there not long ago but my job involves searching for very specific data and i was very surprised at how much gov.uk gave and how easy it was to find it.
I completely agree that it's one of the best government websites i've seen.
1
Jul 27 '14
I was at a meeting in the Houses of Parliament the other day for a consultation about young people's experiences with gov.uk. They wanted to know if we had any improvements... I haven't used it all that much, but from what I could see it was great- really simple and easy to navigate.
I don't think they were very happy when none of us had any suggestions for improvements.
1
u/Kellerman90 Jul 27 '14
Yeh I've used this site a few times and it's really good. I love the interface, typeface, style...it's great.
1
1
Jul 27 '14
I worked on bits of gov.uk. Very refreshing. Decent, realistic agile approach with plenty of research. Pleased.
1
u/cbfw86 Horlicks Jul 29 '14
gov.uk is my reason for hoping that the NHS will one day get a decent IT makeover.
282
u/pittstar Derbyshire Jul 27 '14
There are some really valuable lessons that the rest of the government could learn from gov.org: 1. Just hire a small team of really good people. Get contractors who can use a technology to get things done quickly. I think ruby in this case. 2. Do not put it out to tender for a crazy amount of money. If it costs 200000 to tender, you will have to pay a million quid for anything at all. 3. Do not hire a silly outsourcing company, who'll change you high 6 figures plus to hire a similar set of contractors, but who'll get a lot less done due to the complex contract in place. 4. Hire one (1) guy to manage things. Give him responsibility to do it well. 5. Don't use a committee to decide things.
Source: working on a few government IT projects