10 ms·

Building a better gov.uk, step by step

283 points by open-source-ux 8y ago

moreira 8y ago
Living in the UK, I've come to believe that gov.uk is the model that all governments should follow. No matter what I need to do, gov.uk has all the information I could need, and tells me where to go and what to do. Their greatest success isn't the website, although it is incredibly clean and easy to use. Their greatest success is distilling bureaucracy down to easy-to-follow instructions - as highlighted in this article. Their content is impeccable. Lists, bullet points, jargon-free "here's what you need to do", for any issue you might have in your life.
- rad_gruchalski 8y ago
  Having luved in the UK for 6 years and now in Germany, I agree with you.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  The Plain English Campaign with their Crystal Mark accreditation deserves much credit here too. They've been successfully removing jargon and 200 word convoluted sentences from business and governments since the 70s. gov.uk is a fine continuation of that tradition.
  - adw 8y ago
    The global financial crisis has a lot to do with it. A ton of the best talent in London were at startups and design agencies which went under; a lot of them went to the Government and did a really rigorous job; even though they've now moved on, the culture they put in place was bulletproof.
    - jasoncartwright 8y ago
      Yes, in recent years many top GDS employees have left[0]. Most common past 'companies' for GDS employees on LinkedIn are Department for Work and Pensions, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Justice & Home Office[1]. All the people I know of there used to work at the BBC. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38320072 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38320072 [1] https://imgur.com/a/Gvk1EBV https://imgur.com/a/Gvk1EBV
  - ElBarto 8y ago
    I'm more measured on this. The "plain English campaign" often boils down to dumbing down copy and removing all words that a 12 year old might not know. There are many terms, especially legal terms, which have a precise meaning and which are used for a reason. Teach vocabulary and good English in schools!
    - marsRoverDev 8y ago
      In most cases, it is possible to convey the same information in a concise manner to the average person. Just like with math, I get the impression that sometimes the level of jargon/legalese used is an attempt to differentiate oneself from the everyday person. The same information could theoretically be put forward in a way which is understandable to all, not just those with a degree.
      - ElBarto 8y ago
        It's difficult to convey the same information. From experience, the information provided on gov.uk can be incorrect because it is simplified too much. Very important aspects are lost and it becomes misleading. As the saying goes, simplify as much as possible, but not more.
        afarrell 8y ago
        > but not more Where there is essential complexity, explain the complexity clearly and skillfully. The book Style: Towards Clarity and Grace is a good instruction manual, especially for those who have read Strunk & White
        zimpenfish 8y ago
        Although note that there's a non-zero number of professional linguists and grammarians seem to consider Strunk & White to be prescriptivist nonsense that you're better off ignoring.
        8y ago
- buboard 8y ago
  The first Government As a Service?
- frutiger 8y ago
  As a UK citizen living abroad, there are still some things that are not possible for me to do via hmrc.gov.uk, and still requires paper forms or passcodes to be posted to me (which can take weeks).
- pertymcpert 8y ago
  Except when you need to log in. Email doesn't work, have to remember a government gateway ID that everyone forgets because they use it once a year.
  - groundCode 8y ago
    To be fair, government gateway isn’t actually developed or maintained by GDS (the organisation responsible for GOV.UK)
  - crottypeter 8y ago
    Psst...put it in your password manager.
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    Now that all UK passport holders have NFC passports, they should just say 'touch your passport to the back of your phone to log in'. The passports support challenge-response auth, allowing gov.uk to securely identify the passport in a way a device cannot spoof, and the Web NFC API is implemented quite widely now.
- zhte415 8y ago
  Not living in the UK but being a UK citizen, I agree. If I need a form, I can find it and associated guidance quickly. The equivalent on my corporate intranet means navigating multiple intranet sites and conflicting guidance. What would be nice for a next-step for gov.uk is removing the paper forms entirely for fully electronic filing 'self service' for everything. I understand that takes time.
- open-source-ux 8y ago
  The NHS (National Health Service) website has had a recent update to their homepage and follows a similar style to gov.uk: https://www.nhs.uk/ https://www.nhs.uk/ Here what the old homepage looked like: https://imgur.com/a/Xi1ZHYN https://imgur.com/a/Xi1ZHYN
  - ollybee 8y ago
    They recently published a style guide and it is excellent https://beta.nhs.uk/service-manual/ https://beta.nhs.uk/service-manual/
  - philo23 8y ago
    Hadn't noticed this redesign, looks like they've done a really good job. I wonder if it's just been inspired by GOV.UK or if the same group of people (or just some of them) have been involved. Either way seems like they've made a real improvement.
- macca321 8y ago
  Theres a problem I've found where you can't be sure if bullets are AND conditions or OR conditions. E.g. in https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare?step-by-step-nav=f517cd57-3c18-4bb9-aa8b-1b907e279bf9 https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare?step-by-step-nav=... the eligibility section the first section of bullets is AND and the second is OR. It's easy enough on this page, but when you are looking at tax rules it can be hard to tell.
Someone1234 8y ago
A lot of people skip reading gov.uk because "I'm not from the UK what do I care?!" but I believe it is one of the best consumer web page development & design document bundles around. Even if you're based out of the US or elsewhere. There's too many good pages to link but to get started: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/start-pages/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/start-pages/ https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ The US also has some good sites (Healthcare.gov's design pages[0], federal government's digital team[1]) the main reason I like the gov.uk stuff a little better is because it deals with more than simple design, it gets into philosophy, deployment, and testing. [0] https://styleguide.healthcare.gov/design/ https://styleguide.healthcare.gov/design/ [1] https://designsystem.digital.gov/ https://designsystem.digital.gov/
- unfunco 8y ago
  I don't want to post someones name without their permission but the information is readily available online, one of the people responsible for the improvements to the government digital service previously worked at Vitsœ; and the government design principles you've linked to above are not too dissimilar to Dieter Ram's design principles[0]. [0]: https://vitsoe.com/good-design https://vitsoe.com/good-design
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  Is gov.uk actually better than places like Estonia or Sweden? Or is it just that info about it is in English, so HN talks about it more? (Accessible information is important, so I don't want to down play the importance of it.)
  - rhblake 8y ago
    Definitely better than in Sweden, where there is no central site similar to gov.uk to begin with. Many individual government agencies have pretty good sites though, and most are actually available at least partly in English. https://www.skatteverket.se/ https://www.skatteverket.se/ (tax agency) and https://polisen.se/ https://polisen.se/ (police) are two examples.
afarrell 8y ago
As a US -> UK immigrant, I have been seriously impressed by the design of many UK government pages.
- umichguy 8y ago
  Same here. I am a US to UK person as well. Stuff is just so much easier to find and fill out. It was a breath of fresh air, where previously I would dread the thought of trying to use govt websites.
osrec 8y ago
Gov.uk is a great example for any web developer to follow. You can see the thought they've put into ensuring clarity of information, casting aside complicated, whizzy graphics. Also it's very accessible for those with disabilities. I can only assume that this was one project kept well away from the steer of our politicians!
- petepete 8y ago
  It's more the fact that it wasn't put out to tender and won by a big outsourcing company like Capita. They would have tried to implement it all using SharePoint, gone massively overbudget and bailed leaving a slow mess that everyone avoids. Instead, lots of small projects written by a young team using sensible technologies and sticking to an excellent set of user interface guides.
aogl 8y ago
For years I've often had endless fears when dealing with government departments and websites that are not clear, even more convoluted or not kept up to date. But I have actually found gov.uk to be really straight to the point and concise this past year or so. It's a fantastic change and one that other governments should look at emulating!
pcr0 8y ago
It resembles MDN a lot. I like the contrast on the page, it's really nice after all the faded blacks that you see around the web.
babahoyo 8y ago
This reminds me of how incredibly good TurboTax is at UI, and if US and state governments were to invest in UI we wouldn't have to pay $100 a year just to do our taxes.
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  TurboTax lobbying is the reason you have to use TurboTax. It isn't like Australia, Sweden, or Vietnam have spent millions of dollars on UX for their tax filing, yet no one uses tax software in those places.
  - robinwassen 8y ago
    You are right. The UX for the Swedish tax filing is sub-optimal, the language is not simple and calculations are unnecessarily complex. The main reasons are that the tax form comes prefilled, most people don't have to do any adjustments and can just sign it and hand it in. If I understand the US correctly TurboTax does a lot of lobbying against this for obvious reasons. On top of that filing taxes can be done completely online and when you do have questions the Swedish tax agency is actually one of the most helpful and professional service that I have encountered.
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  Don't get too excited. Filing your taxes online in the UK is also still largely horrid, and often seems to require either starting afresh (the equivalent of "turn it on and off again") because some unknown error is reported on submission, or just phoning HMRC to talk to someone. Whether this is because GDS haven't got their teeth into HMRC yet I don't know, but not everything over here is as shiny as some would have you believe.
  - jfk13 8y ago
    Your taxes are probably more complex than mine, but to counter this with an anecdote: I've been using Self-Assessment Online for years and never had an issue with it.
  - 8y ago
sbfriends 8y ago
Australia tried to follow this with gov.au, and it was a bit of a debacle. It ultimately didn't work because it the agency driving it lacked a stick and couldn't coerce agencies to give up their branding/content. Agencies couldn't see the financial incentive -- they'd have to give up their funding and control, and that just wasn't appealing at all. Frustratingly the idea will be dead for a good time to come now. For an agency to do this, they need a stick -- I believe the GDS had IT spending levers they could pull to control how money was spent across the entire public sector. This made them quite powerful and ultimately allowed them to say "if you want to publish your agency's content, it has to be on our platform". The end result is a far better UX.
- adw 8y ago
  Also, cross-party backing (prominently Francis Maude and the Lib Dems on the Coalition side, Tom Watson on the Labour one.)
- asplake 8y ago
  Not so much “on our platform” (services are surprisingly free in terms of technology and process) but “by our principles”. The GDS assessment process did indeed have clout, in the sense that services could fail, and failure had consequences for funding. I did two 6-month stints as delivery manager on GDS “exemplar” projects. I remain a fan.
  - sbfriends 8y ago
    Maybe not platform per se, but through your domain. There's a huge power in that (as gatekeeper of content). It means department's have no choice but to adhere to the standards and recommendations. The exemplar projects in the Australian system were discontinued after the second round, and were really just lip-service -- at the end of the day, even the exemplar projects were at the mercy of internal Departmental IT operations who ultimately decided what went on to their Departmental domains.
ttty 8y ago
I didn't saw anybody mention the amount of money they save because they don't need to support by phone and email that much. I was thinking of other countries with really complicated gov pages must get so much more questions by phone, face to face or email. Probably a magnitude more. Also these countries learned to answer emails with a template that comes from the website, like copy paste. Therefore the customer need to wait for the template, ask again and wait for the 2nd reply, which most of the time is as bad as the first one. Then you call in. (By the way, looks like PayPal learned this technique as well, send a template to any support ticket, wasting the time) I think this younger generation prefers to read online, so they did a very good bet
topicseed 8y ago
I am based in England and so is my company. GOV.CO.UK is an incredible portal: finding info is easy, readig is easy, getting forms is magical, sending forms is seamless. Some parts of the other related portals are older though but being updated too, in order to have a consistent experience throughout. LOVE IT.
EngineerBetter 8y ago
I know GDS uses Cloud Foundry a lot (as do the US and Korean governments). How much of gov.uk is deployed on CF?
- blackadder 8y ago
  It depends on the project. CF isn't the only platform. I've worked on non-CF projects under the GDS umbrella. There is a bit of Azure PaaS and AWS too.
- javindo 8y ago
  GDS hosts a CF instance called PaaS (Platform as a Service) which hosts web applications on *.cloudapps.digital but the majority of the actual GOV.UK estate is hosted in AWS, as is GOV.UK Verify. I believe GOV.UK Pay might be on PaaS and a lot of internal tooling is. (Source: have worked at GDS for the past couple of years.)
  - wooVe5ee 8y ago
    GOV.UK Pay use Amazon ECS, not CF. They do this because it is PCI compliant. GOV.UK aren't quite yet entirely on AWS but are working toward that end. With GOV.UK, all the code is in the open where possible (https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws and https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-puppet https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-puppet respectively for the infrastructure). Source: I used to work at GDS.
- ownagefool 8y ago
  To expand on the other answers a bit, not everything on .gov.uk is actually ran by GDS, but rather GDS provides governance. I worked on building out a kubernetes platform for a large Government Department. Once a service passes the initial assessment, they can get assigned control of the sub domain and point it at their own hosting.
- ris 8y ago
  None afaik.
flr03 8y ago
gov.uk is state of art can't praise it enough, especially after so many embarrassing experiences with the french equivalent(s)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xuan 8y ago
Disclaimer I used to work for the Ministry of Justice (UK) as a software developer. There are two aspects I feel worth mentioning: 1. GOV.UK is not one single unit but rather quite distributed. these styles and standards are created by a central organisation called Government Digital Service, and all the the government departments follow and feedback. There is a design community and one of the ways of collaboration is to use a Wiki https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/GOV.UK-Design-Patterns-Wiki-hkou7bpzKya8Dadv24V1z https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/GOV.UK-Design-Patterns-Wiki-hk... 2. UK government is a big open source software contributor. Software projects by default are open source on github. It felt really good getting paid for writing open source code when I worked there :) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/be-open-and-use-open-source https://www.gov.uk/guidance/be-open-and-use-open-source
- m0nty 8y ago
  This is a complete 180 from about 18 years ago, when I contacted someone re. the Jobcentre website requiring Internet Explorer: "I only have a Linux system, how can I get access?" "We only support Microsoft Explorer." "So if I use Linux I can't find a job?" "We only support Microsoft Explorer." That kind of blinkered approach went on for far too long, so it's a real pleasure to use the various websites on gov.uk at the moment. Even traditionally unpleasant things like filing a VAT return are relatively low friction, and taxing a car is absurdly easy. Now, how can we get the same sort of thing to happen across Whitehall and Westminster more generally? ;)
adav 8y ago
There are a lot of HMRC pages/flows that desperately need the GDS treatment!
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  As someone who's just gone through the process of becoming a visa sponsor, I'd add Visas & Immigration too!
Liquidor 8y ago
We've had something similar in Denmark for a couple of years: https://www.borger.dk/ https://www.borger.dk/ (translation: citizen) English version (smaller but directed at non-citizens): https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/ https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/ It's crazy how much you can do on your own and it leads you to wherever you need to go. The website also changes the available subjects based on the municipal you live in (as an option to avoid confusion). Almost every page has been written and updated by one of the departments in the government as noted at the bottom of every page. Sample pages to look at: https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt (landing page with popular shortcuts/subjects) https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt/flytning-i-danmark https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt/fl... (subjects and Start buttons for forms and guides either on borger.dk or one of the other gov websites such as https://virk.dk https://virk.dk (company/business registration/management) and https://sundhed.dk https://sundhed.dk (health database with knowledge and journals)
chrxr 8y ago
Other areas of IT around the UK gov are learning from the success of gov.uk. DHSC just set out its vision for digital future of healthcare for the NHS, and it looks very promising: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-of-healthcare-our-vision-for-digital-data-and-technology-in-health-and-care/the-future-of-healthcare-our-vision-for-digital-data-and-technology-in-health-and-care https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-of-hea...
test6554 8y ago
So now that they know these processes are sequential, and commonly used, does each government department still require you to fill out a paper form with your name and all the other same information on it? Or is there a way to streamline someones journey through the bureaucracy digitally?
motohagiography 8y ago
Question about public service projects, may make it an Ask HN or a blog question as well: The Agile or iterative model, coupled with the sec/devops CI/CD model that includes "own what you build," means that developers and highly skilled devops teams are available to manage a CI/CD pipeline throughout the lifetime of the product. There is an underlying assumption that you are building to support the growth and revenue model that SaaS companies require to survive and in turn pay for continuous developers. In public services, there is no such revenue growth. You have a budget for developing it, then hand it over for production, and then you manage it over the long term with more cost effective operators who are largely unionized employees, engaging developers only if needed to reconcile the code with an infrastructure change. Keeping developers engaged and maintaining CI/CD on a product that does not have revenue or growth means that the cost curve diminishes much more slowly than in the waterfall engineering model. It means we have to ask whether the additional cost yields commensurate benefits, and what budgeting for a service supported by CI/CD truly costs without hockey stick revenue growth attached to it. I contract to an agency that would benefit from an 18F.gov or gov.uk like digital service, but I have not seen this particular cost issue addressed. Has anyone in gov.uk, 18F or another digital service run up against this, and found solutions?
- glenjamin 8y ago
  From what I have seen, this is one of the major problems that the GOV.UK / GDS service model has thus far failed to address. The advice is "keep the team around for each service indefinitely". Unfortunately this doesn't mesh well with either government technology funding models or the demand for increasing numbers of services.
Separo 8y ago
Absolutely one of the best websites in the world in terms of user interface and usability. I'm always surprised that using this site actually feels rewarding even though I'm doing administrative tasks with my government.
MordodeMaru 8y ago
We had Kuba Bartwicki yesterday in Product Hunt Madrid and it was simply amazing. In this thread you can get a gist of what he shared with us about the goals and tools GDS is using to cause digital entropy. https://twitter.com/MadProductHunt/status/1052989065480540166 https://twitter.com/MadProductHunt/status/105298906548054016...

Living in the UK, I've come to believe that gov.uk is the model that all governments should follow. No matter what I need to do, gov.uk has all the information I could need, and tells me where to go and what to do. Their greatest success isn't the website, although it is incredibly clean and easy to use. Their greatest success is distilling bureaucracy down to easy-to-follow instructions - as highlighted in this article. Their content is impeccable. Lists, bullet points, jargon-free "here's what you need to do", for any issue you might have in your life.

rad_gruchalski 8y ago
Having luved in the UK for 6 years and now in Germany, I agree with you.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
The Plain English Campaign with their Crystal Mark accreditation deserves much credit here too. They've been successfully removing jargon and 200 word convoluted sentences from business and governments since the 70s. gov.uk is a fine continuation of that tradition.
- adw 8y ago
  The global financial crisis has a lot to do with it. A ton of the best talent in London were at startups and design agencies which went under; a lot of them went to the Government and did a really rigorous job; even though they've now moved on, the culture they put in place was bulletproof.
  - jasoncartwright 8y ago
    Yes, in recent years many top GDS employees have left[0]. Most common past 'companies' for GDS employees on LinkedIn are Department for Work and Pensions, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Justice & Home Office[1]. All the people I know of there used to work at the BBC. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38320072 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38320072 [1] https://imgur.com/a/Gvk1EBV https://imgur.com/a/Gvk1EBV
- ElBarto 8y ago
  I'm more measured on this. The "plain English campaign" often boils down to dumbing down copy and removing all words that a 12 year old might not know. There are many terms, especially legal terms, which have a precise meaning and which are used for a reason. Teach vocabulary and good English in schools!
  - marsRoverDev 8y ago
    In most cases, it is possible to convey the same information in a concise manner to the average person. Just like with math, I get the impression that sometimes the level of jargon/legalese used is an attempt to differentiate oneself from the everyday person. The same information could theoretically be put forward in a way which is understandable to all, not just those with a degree.
    - ElBarto 8y ago
      It's difficult to convey the same information. From experience, the information provided on gov.uk can be incorrect because it is simplified too much. Very important aspects are lost and it becomes misleading. As the saying goes, simplify as much as possible, but not more.
      - afarrell 8y ago
        > but not more Where there is essential complexity, explain the complexity clearly and skillfully. The book Style: Towards Clarity and Grace is a good instruction manual, especially for those who have read Strunk & White
        zimpenfish 8y ago
        Although note that there's a non-zero number of professional linguists and grammarians seem to consider Strunk & White to be prescriptivist nonsense that you're better off ignoring.
        8y ago
buboard 8y ago
The first Government As a Service?
frutiger 8y ago
As a UK citizen living abroad, there are still some things that are not possible for me to do via hmrc.gov.uk, and still requires paper forms or passcodes to be posted to me (which can take weeks).
pertymcpert 8y ago
Except when you need to log in. Email doesn't work, have to remember a government gateway ID that everyone forgets because they use it once a year.
- groundCode 8y ago
  To be fair, government gateway isn’t actually developed or maintained by GDS (the organisation responsible for GOV.UK)
- crottypeter 8y ago
  Psst...put it in your password manager.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Now that all UK passport holders have NFC passports, they should just say 'touch your passport to the back of your phone to log in'. The passports support challenge-response auth, allowing gov.uk to securely identify the passport in a way a device cannot spoof, and the Web NFC API is implemented quite widely now.
zhte415 8y ago
Not living in the UK but being a UK citizen, I agree. If I need a form, I can find it and associated guidance quickly. The equivalent on my corporate intranet means navigating multiple intranet sites and conflicting guidance. What would be nice for a next-step for gov.uk is removing the paper forms entirely for fully electronic filing 'self service' for everything. I understand that takes time.
open-source-ux 8y ago
The NHS (National Health Service) website has had a recent update to their homepage and follows a similar style to gov.uk: https://www.nhs.uk/ https://www.nhs.uk/ Here what the old homepage looked like: https://imgur.com/a/Xi1ZHYN https://imgur.com/a/Xi1ZHYN
- ollybee 8y ago
  They recently published a style guide and it is excellent https://beta.nhs.uk/service-manual/ https://beta.nhs.uk/service-manual/
- philo23 8y ago
  Hadn't noticed this redesign, looks like they've done a really good job. I wonder if it's just been inspired by GOV.UK or if the same group of people (or just some of them) have been involved. Either way seems like they've made a real improvement.
macca321 8y ago
Theres a problem I've found where you can't be sure if bullets are AND conditions or OR conditions. E.g. in https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare?step-by-step-nav=f517cd57-3c18-4bb9-aa8b-1b907e279bf9 https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare?step-by-step-nav=... the eligibility section the first section of bullets is AND and the second is OR. It's easy enough on this page, but when you are looking at tax rules it can be hard to tell.

Someone1234 8y ago

A lot of people skip reading gov.uk because "I'm not from the UK what do I care?!" but I believe it is one of the best consumer web page development & design document bundles around. Even if you're based out of the US or elsewhere. There's too many good pages to link but to get started: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/start-pages/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/start-pages/ https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ The US also has some good sites (Healthcare.gov's design pages[0], federal government's digital team[1]) the main reason I like the gov.uk stuff a little better is because it deals with more than simple design, it gets into philosophy, deployment, and testing. [0] https://styleguide.healthcare.gov/design/ https://styleguide.healthcare.gov/design/ [1] https://designsystem.digital.gov/ https://designsystem.digital.gov/

unfunco 8y ago
I don't want to post someones name without their permission but the information is readily available online, one of the people responsible for the improvements to the government digital service previously worked at Vitsœ; and the government design principles you've linked to above are not too dissimilar to Dieter Ram's design principles[0]. [0]: https://vitsoe.com/good-design https://vitsoe.com/good-design
freddie_mercury 8y ago
Is gov.uk actually better than places like Estonia or Sweden? Or is it just that info about it is in English, so HN talks about it more? (Accessible information is important, so I don't want to down play the importance of it.)
- rhblake 8y ago
  Definitely better than in Sweden, where there is no central site similar to gov.uk to begin with. Many individual government agencies have pretty good sites though, and most are actually available at least partly in English. https://www.skatteverket.se/ https://www.skatteverket.se/ (tax agency) and https://polisen.se/ https://polisen.se/ (police) are two examples.

afarrell 8y ago

As a US -> UK immigrant, I have been seriously impressed by the design of many UK government pages.

umichguy 8y ago
Same here. I am a US to UK person as well. Stuff is just so much easier to find and fill out. It was a breath of fresh air, where previously I would dread the thought of trying to use govt websites.

osrec 8y ago

Gov.uk is a great example for any web developer to follow. You can see the thought they've put into ensuring clarity of information, casting aside complicated, whizzy graphics. Also it's very accessible for those with disabilities. I can only assume that this was one project kept well away from the steer of our politicians!

petepete 8y ago
It's more the fact that it wasn't put out to tender and won by a big outsourcing company like Capita. They would have tried to implement it all using SharePoint, gone massively overbudget and bailed leaving a slow mess that everyone avoids. Instead, lots of small projects written by a young team using sensible technologies and sticking to an excellent set of user interface guides.

aogl 8y ago

For years I've often had endless fears when dealing with government departments and websites that are not clear, even more convoluted or not kept up to date. But I have actually found gov.uk to be really straight to the point and concise this past year or so. It's a fantastic change and one that other governments should look at emulating!

pcr0 8y ago

It resembles MDN a lot. I like the contrast on the page, it's really nice after all the faded blacks that you see around the web.

babahoyo 8y ago

This reminds me of how incredibly good TurboTax is at UI, and if US and state governments were to invest in UI we wouldn't have to pay $100 a year just to do our taxes.

freddie_mercury 8y ago
TurboTax lobbying is the reason you have to use TurboTax. It isn't like Australia, Sweden, or Vietnam have spent millions of dollars on UX for their tax filing, yet no one uses tax software in those places.
- robinwassen 8y ago
  You are right. The UX for the Swedish tax filing is sub-optimal, the language is not simple and calculations are unnecessarily complex. The main reasons are that the tax form comes prefilled, most people don't have to do any adjustments and can just sign it and hand it in. If I understand the US correctly TurboTax does a lot of lobbying against this for obvious reasons. On top of that filing taxes can be done completely online and when you do have questions the Swedish tax agency is actually one of the most helpful and professional service that I have encountered.
Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
Don't get too excited. Filing your taxes online in the UK is also still largely horrid, and often seems to require either starting afresh (the equivalent of "turn it on and off again") because some unknown error is reported on submission, or just phoning HMRC to talk to someone. Whether this is because GDS haven't got their teeth into HMRC yet I don't know, but not everything over here is as shiny as some would have you believe.
- jfk13 8y ago
  Your taxes are probably more complex than mine, but to counter this with an anecdote: I've been using Self-Assessment Online for years and never had an issue with it.
- 8y ago

sbfriends 8y ago

Australia tried to follow this with gov.au, and it was a bit of a debacle. It ultimately didn't work because it the agency driving it lacked a stick and couldn't coerce agencies to give up their branding/content. Agencies couldn't see the financial incentive -- they'd have to give up their funding and control, and that just wasn't appealing at all. Frustratingly the idea will be dead for a good time to come now. For an agency to do this, they need a stick -- I believe the GDS had IT spending levers they could pull to control how money was spent across the entire public sector. This made them quite powerful and ultimately allowed them to say "if you want to publish your agency's content, it has to be on our platform". The end result is a far better UX.

adw 8y ago
Also, cross-party backing (prominently Francis Maude and the Lib Dems on the Coalition side, Tom Watson on the Labour one.)
asplake 8y ago
Not so much “on our platform” (services are surprisingly free in terms of technology and process) but “by our principles”. The GDS assessment process did indeed have clout, in the sense that services could fail, and failure had consequences for funding. I did two 6-month stints as delivery manager on GDS “exemplar” projects. I remain a fan.
- sbfriends 8y ago
  Maybe not platform per se, but through your domain. There's a huge power in that (as gatekeeper of content). It means department's have no choice but to adhere to the standards and recommendations. The exemplar projects in the Australian system were discontinued after the second round, and were really just lip-service -- at the end of the day, even the exemplar projects were at the mercy of internal Departmental IT operations who ultimately decided what went on to their Departmental domains.

ttty 8y ago

I didn't saw anybody mention the amount of money they save because they don't need to support by phone and email that much. I was thinking of other countries with really complicated gov pages must get so much more questions by phone, face to face or email. Probably a magnitude more. Also these countries learned to answer emails with a template that comes from the website, like copy paste. Therefore the customer need to wait for the template, ask again and wait for the 2nd reply, which most of the time is as bad as the first one. Then you call in. (By the way, looks like PayPal learned this technique as well, send a template to any support ticket, wasting the time) I think this younger generation prefers to read online, so they did a very good bet

topicseed 8y ago

I am based in England and so is my company. GOV.CO.UK is an incredible portal: finding info is easy, readig is easy, getting forms is magical, sending forms is seamless. Some parts of the other related portals are older though but being updated too, in order to have a consistent experience throughout. LOVE IT.

EngineerBetter 8y ago

I know GDS uses Cloud Foundry a lot (as do the US and Korean governments). How much of gov.uk is deployed on CF?

blackadder 8y ago
It depends on the project. CF isn't the only platform. I've worked on non-CF projects under the GDS umbrella. There is a bit of Azure PaaS and AWS too.
javindo 8y ago
GDS hosts a CF instance called PaaS (Platform as a Service) which hosts web applications on *.cloudapps.digital but the majority of the actual GOV.UK estate is hosted in AWS, as is GOV.UK Verify. I believe GOV.UK Pay might be on PaaS and a lot of internal tooling is. (Source: have worked at GDS for the past couple of years.)
- wooVe5ee 8y ago
  GOV.UK Pay use Amazon ECS, not CF. They do this because it is PCI compliant. GOV.UK aren't quite yet entirely on AWS but are working toward that end. With GOV.UK, all the code is in the open where possible (https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-aws and https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-puppet https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-puppet respectively for the infrastructure). Source: I used to work at GDS.
ownagefool 8y ago
To expand on the other answers a bit, not everything on .gov.uk is actually ran by GDS, but rather GDS provides governance. I worked on building out a kubernetes platform for a large Government Department. Once a service passes the initial assessment, they can get assigned control of the sub domain and point it at their own hosting.
ris 8y ago
None afaik.

flr03 8y ago

gov.uk is state of art can't praise it enough, especially after so many embarrassing experiences with the french equivalent(s)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

xuan 8y ago

Disclaimer I used to work for the Ministry of Justice (UK) as a software developer. There are two aspects I feel worth mentioning: 1. GOV.UK is not one single unit but rather quite distributed. these styles and standards are created by a central organisation called Government Digital Service, and all the the government departments follow and feedback. There is a design community and one of the ways of collaboration is to use a Wiki https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/GOV.UK-Design-Patterns-Wiki-hkou7bpzKya8Dadv24V1z https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/GOV.UK-Design-Patterns-Wiki-hk... 2. UK government is a big open source software contributor. Software projects by default are open source on github. It felt really good getting paid for writing open source code when I worked there :) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/be-open-and-use-open-source https://www.gov.uk/guidance/be-open-and-use-open-source

m0nty 8y ago
This is a complete 180 from about 18 years ago, when I contacted someone re. the Jobcentre website requiring Internet Explorer: "I only have a Linux system, how can I get access?" "We only support Microsoft Explorer." "So if I use Linux I can't find a job?" "We only support Microsoft Explorer." That kind of blinkered approach went on for far too long, so it's a real pleasure to use the various websites on gov.uk at the moment. Even traditionally unpleasant things like filing a VAT return are relatively low friction, and taxing a car is absurdly easy. Now, how can we get the same sort of thing to happen across Whitehall and Westminster more generally? ;)

adav 8y ago

There are a lot of HMRC pages/flows that desperately need the GDS treatment!

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
As someone who's just gone through the process of becoming a visa sponsor, I'd add Visas & Immigration too!

Liquidor 8y ago

We've had something similar in Denmark for a couple of years: https://www.borger.dk/ https://www.borger.dk/ (translation: citizen) English version (smaller but directed at non-citizens): https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/ https://lifeindenmark.borger.dk/ It's crazy how much you can do on your own and it leads you to wherever you need to go. The website also changes the available subjects based on the municipal you live in (as an option to avoid confusion). Almost every page has been written and updated by one of the departments in the government as noted at the bottom of every page. Sample pages to look at: https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt (landing page with popular shortcuts/subjects) https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt/flytning-i-danmark https://www.borger.dk/bolig-og-flytning/flytning_oversigt/fl... (subjects and Start buttons for forms and guides either on borger.dk or one of the other gov websites such as https://virk.dk https://virk.dk (company/business registration/management) and https://sundhed.dk https://sundhed.dk (health database with knowledge and journals)

chrxr 8y ago

Other areas of IT around the UK gov are learning from the success of gov.uk. DHSC just set out its vision for digital future of healthcare for the NHS, and it looks very promising: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-of-healthcare-our-vision-for-digital-data-and-technology-in-health-and-care/the-future-of-healthcare-our-vision-for-digital-data-and-technology-in-health-and-care https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-of-hea...

test6554 8y ago

So now that they know these processes are sequential, and commonly used, does each government department still require you to fill out a paper form with your name and all the other same information on it? Or is there a way to streamline someones journey through the bureaucracy digitally?

motohagiography 8y ago

Question about public service projects, may make it an Ask HN or a blog question as well: The Agile or iterative model, coupled with the sec/devops CI/CD model that includes "own what you build," means that developers and highly skilled devops teams are available to manage a CI/CD pipeline throughout the lifetime of the product. There is an underlying assumption that you are building to support the growth and revenue model that SaaS companies require to survive and in turn pay for continuous developers. In public services, there is no such revenue growth. You have a budget for developing it, then hand it over for production, and then you manage it over the long term with more cost effective operators who are largely unionized employees, engaging developers only if needed to reconcile the code with an infrastructure change. Keeping developers engaged and maintaining CI/CD on a product that does not have revenue or growth means that the cost curve diminishes much more slowly than in the waterfall engineering model. It means we have to ask whether the additional cost yields commensurate benefits, and what budgeting for a service supported by CI/CD truly costs without hockey stick revenue growth attached to it. I contract to an agency that would benefit from an 18F.gov or gov.uk like digital service, but I have not seen this particular cost issue addressed. Has anyone in gov.uk, 18F or another digital service run up against this, and found solutions?

glenjamin 8y ago
From what I have seen, this is one of the major problems that the GOV.UK / GDS service model has thus far failed to address. The advice is "keep the team around for each service indefinitely". Unfortunately this doesn't mesh well with either government technology funding models or the demand for increasing numbers of services.

Separo 8y ago

Absolutely one of the best websites in the world in terms of user interface and usability. I'm always surprised that using this site actually feels rewarding even though I'm doing administrative tasks with my government.

MordodeMaru 8y ago

We had Kuba Bartwicki yesterday in Product Hunt Madrid and it was simply amazing. In this thread you can get a gist of what he shared with us about the goals and tools GDS is using to cause digital entropy. https://twitter.com/MadProductHunt/status/1052989065480540166 https://twitter.com/MadProductHunt/status/105298906548054016...