6 ms·

Having interacted with a number of government websites, I have to say the UK government does an excellent job of theirs. Most things are simple to understand an

by osrec 8y ago

Having interacted with a number of government websites, I have to say the UK government does an excellent job of theirs. Most things are simple to understand and clearly presented. Even though I only use it for the the most mundane of things, using it is generally a very pleasant experience!

mattmanser 8y ago
Yeah, it's been a real turn around, used to be awful. My only complaint is that they're sometimes too dogmatic about the one question per page thing, which is actually a pretty stupid UX commandment as soon as you get to complex logic flows. I think they've relaxed a bit on that though, I didn't notice it last time I was doing my company tax return.
- Balero 8y ago
  They do have to make the site usable by everyone including the non-tech savvy, I can definitely see good reasons for keeping the input extremely limited. One of the "downsides" of it being a government site is that it needs to be usable for everyone. Which can be a bit frustrating for power users.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    They could add a single-page view. It's not very hard to automatically generate single-page and multi-page views of the same form.
    - williamdclt 8y ago
      Not necessarily easy either, and I don't really see the point. It's perfectly usable as it is, might as well keep it simple and invest time/money in stuff more useful than satisfying the .5% of users that are techy (made up number) for the few times a year they have to use the website
      - mattmanser 8y ago
        It really wasn't, 2 years ago there was one place where they told you which type of accounts to submit made up of 10 pages of single questions. Except, I knew which type I had to submit and it was telling me the wrong one. I was obviously answering one question wrong. But I couldn't go back and I could see my previous answers, I could only start again. That's basically a ten page glorified wizard with no back button, which is actually a big UX no-no. Must have gone through the damn thing 5 times before I finally got the right form.
nothrabannosir 8y ago
Could not agree more. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they’re not just the best .gov site out there, but one of the best sites, full stop. (I know a few people who worked on various parts of it and for what it’s worth: they’re all legit. They care, and they’re good. It should come as no surprise that the site turned out the way it did, if they’re hiring these sorts of people.)
- jen20 8y ago
  I remember attending a talk by some of those involved a couple of years ago where they stated that the air cover from the (then) minister responsible - Francis Maude - was what enabled the progress which was made, and that other ministers attempted to frustrate the process throughout. I don't know if it was recorded or not, but if it was it's an interesting insight into getting things done in the UK government.
  - tomaskafka 8y ago
    Oh yes, these things don't happen without air cover from a wise strongman (or strongwoman)
- kqr 8y ago
  > (I know a few people who worked on various parts of it and for what it’s worth: they’re all legit. They care, and they’re good. It should come as no surprise that the site turned out the way it did, if they’re hiring these sorts of people.) I imagine working for a government is interesting from an incentives perspective too, simply because the optimisation is not about profit in the market sense.
  - yoz 8y ago
    I worked for 18F (a digital transformation organization within the Federal Government, working with many different parts of it) for nearly four years. The lack of profit pressure was one of my favourite things about it, and one of the reasons why we had more room to do things "the right way". (Another reason: you're never sure when a codebase will get improvement/maintenance windows.) Related: GDS (the GOV.UK people) was a huge inspiration to us from the start. Both 18F and USDS (another Federal Gov org focused on digital transformation) have strong connections to GDS, and there's lots of conversation between the groups.
amiga-workbench 8y ago
The team behind it have done some excellent writeups on the methodology and reasoning behind a lot of the design decisions. I only wish 1/10th of the web was this considerate towards the user.
- jnewkirk 8y ago
  Can you point me to any of these writeups? We're a local government site undertaking a design refresh, and they sound very helpful.
  - chillax 8y ago
    This might be part of it: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design
  - amiga-workbench 8y ago
    Check this out https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/ https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/ Specifically the posts like this https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/19/why-we-use-progressive-enhancement-to-build-gov-uk/ https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/19/why-we-use-prog...
    - jnewkirk 8y ago
      Splendid! Thanks.
DC-3 8y ago
Sadly, not everything is yet on the new gov.uk site. But those thing which are tend to be presented very well indeed.
stealthmodeclan 8y ago
Singapore goverment's website is also very good.
- overcast 8y ago
  Are we looking at the same site?

by osrec 8y ago

mattmanser 8y ago

Yeah, it's been a real turn around, used to be awful. My only complaint is that they're sometimes too dogmatic about the one question per page thing, which is actually a pretty stupid UX commandment as soon as you get to complex logic flows. I think they've relaxed a bit on that though, I didn't notice it last time I was doing my company tax return.

Balero 8y ago
They do have to make the site usable by everyone including the non-tech savvy, I can definitely see good reasons for keeping the input extremely limited. One of the "downsides" of it being a government site is that it needs to be usable for everyone. Which can be a bit frustrating for power users.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  They could add a single-page view. It's not very hard to automatically generate single-page and multi-page views of the same form.
  - williamdclt 8y ago
    Not necessarily easy either, and I don't really see the point. It's perfectly usable as it is, might as well keep it simple and invest time/money in stuff more useful than satisfying the .5% of users that are techy (made up number) for the few times a year they have to use the website
    - mattmanser 8y ago
      It really wasn't, 2 years ago there was one place where they told you which type of accounts to submit made up of 10 pages of single questions. Except, I knew which type I had to submit and it was telling me the wrong one. I was obviously answering one question wrong. But I couldn't go back and I could see my previous answers, I could only start again. That's basically a ten page glorified wizard with no back button, which is actually a big UX no-no. Must have gone through the damn thing 5 times before I finally got the right form.

nothrabannosir 8y ago

Could not agree more. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they’re not just the best .gov site out there, but one of the best sites, full stop. (I know a few people who worked on various parts of it and for what it’s worth: they’re all legit. They care, and they’re good. It should come as no surprise that the site turned out the way it did, if they’re hiring these sorts of people.)

jen20 8y ago
I remember attending a talk by some of those involved a couple of years ago where they stated that the air cover from the (then) minister responsible - Francis Maude - was what enabled the progress which was made, and that other ministers attempted to frustrate the process throughout. I don't know if it was recorded or not, but if it was it's an interesting insight into getting things done in the UK government.
- tomaskafka 8y ago
  Oh yes, these things don't happen without air cover from a wise strongman (or strongwoman)
kqr 8y ago
> (I know a few people who worked on various parts of it and for what it’s worth: they’re all legit. They care, and they’re good. It should come as no surprise that the site turned out the way it did, if they’re hiring these sorts of people.) I imagine working for a government is interesting from an incentives perspective too, simply because the optimisation is not about profit in the market sense.
- yoz 8y ago
  I worked for 18F (a digital transformation organization within the Federal Government, working with many different parts of it) for nearly four years. The lack of profit pressure was one of my favourite things about it, and one of the reasons why we had more room to do things "the right way". (Another reason: you're never sure when a codebase will get improvement/maintenance windows.) Related: GDS (the GOV.UK people) was a huge inspiration to us from the start. Both 18F and USDS (another Federal Gov org focused on digital transformation) have strong connections to GDS, and there's lots of conversation between the groups.

amiga-workbench 8y ago

The team behind it have done some excellent writeups on the methodology and reasoning behind a lot of the design decisions. I only wish 1/10th of the web was this considerate towards the user.

jnewkirk 8y ago
Can you point me to any of these writeups? We're a local government site undertaking a design refresh, and they sound very helpful.
- chillax 8y ago
  This might be part of it: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design
- amiga-workbench 8y ago
  Check this out https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/ https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/ Specifically the posts like this https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/19/why-we-use-progressive-enhancement-to-build-gov-uk/ https://gdstechnology.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/19/why-we-use-prog...
  - jnewkirk 8y ago
    Splendid! Thanks.

DC-3 8y ago

Sadly, not everything is yet on the new gov.uk site. But those thing which are tend to be presented very well indeed.

stealthmodeclan 8y ago

Singapore goverment's website is also very good.

overcast 8y ago
Are we looking at the same site?