7 ms·

For background, this is done by NHS digital: https://digital.nhs.uk https://digital.nhs.uk They are a cultural descendant of GDS, who make GOV.UK amongst other

by bfirsh 8y ago

For background, this is done by NHS digital: https://digital.nhs.uk https://digital.nhs.uk They are a cultural descendant of GDS, who make GOV.UK amongst other things: https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ All of GOV.UK is open source in a similar way: https://github.com/alphagov https://github.com/alphagov (Source: I worked for GDS.)

IshKebab 8y ago
What is it about GDS that lets them do IT well? Most government IT projects end up complete disasters - the digitisation of the NHS and the fire service "firecontrol" scheme were two recent really insanely expensive projects that ended in utter failure. That seems to be the norm. What do you think makes GDS different?
- c-rhodes 8y ago
  Most government IT projects are given to contractors after a bidding process, the GDS and NHS Digital are teams of skilled developers working within the government.
  - throwawaythrow1 8y ago
    Amongst others, there's fine work being done at DVLA, DVSA, MOJ, DWP and Home Office Digital are in good shape too
    - asplake 8y ago
      Worked at three of those. Yes contractors, but also staff. Part of one my roles as delivery manager at one of the 'exemplar' projects was to train up my replacement (which was cool). I'm a massive fan.
- morelikeborelax 8y ago
  The government embraced an agile transformation as a legacy enterprise software company would that wanted to remain relevant and compete in the private sector. Because they have the right approach to software development and the services were so far behind and costing so much it couldn't really be objected to as a strategy. The other big factor was that all 3 major political parties agreed at the time and it wasn't blocked. It was moved to focus on the needs of citizens owned by civil servants rather than the convenience of government and farmed out.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  I think most government projects are contracted out to huge bloated dinosaur companies with crony connections and more people on staff that know how to navigate government purchasing buerocracy than know how to code. In the US we also have a new in house team of coders, led, I believe by xoogler Matt Cutts that has been doing an excellent job as far as I have heard. I think the key here is that outsourcing your tech is rarely superior to highering talent in house.
  - user5994461 8y ago
    Having been on the receiving end while working at a contracting company, I wouldn't say that. The process seemed fairly open. The government send requests for proposals and contracting companies can bid. There is no trick involved. I found the requirements to be surprisingly well written on a few I had to read.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    The key is also that you hire talent :)
tempguy9999 8y ago
Does the GDS do the gov.uk universal credit website? That mostly-stable-but-plenty-flaky site that I have to use, that has numerous stupidities to it which I've reported but they don't do anything about? Perhaps you can tell me: how do I get their attention? TIA (edit: because I'd be embarrassed to release something so clunky and sometimes even user-hostile - seriously, how?)
- throwawaythrow1 8y ago
  That's the DWP, and they know about it and will eventually get to fixing it but it'll take a while
  - tempguy9999 8y ago
    Then why won't they even acknowledge it? In fact one of the first things I reported is the banner at the top of the page saying "BETA This is a new service - your feedback will help us to improve it" - but it does nothing - it's just text, and there's no way of giving feedback. I reported that 3+ weeks ago and it's still useless. How about the very-less-than-perfect UI? If they'd done even the most basic user testing they would have found lots of problems already, and that they didn't do such testing shows they weren't looking for problems (which is not a UI problem, it's a systemic dev/management problem). I even sent them a link on how to do UI testing, of course that's not been acknowledged. And the UI will happily hide info you need. Or log you out, losing all the info you've entered because you've not hit the Save button. It's a bit pathetic - I'm a DB guy but I know more about front end usability than they do. And I really doubt they have a test suite of any comprehensiveness. I could go on - I know the staff at the job centers also have had at least one issue (small but avoidable), I was there when it happened. For a service intended for use by millions of people, it's not acceptable, not even close. Shall I go on? I can give specifics, and the total time I've been interacting with this system is probably a couple of hours tops, and I've run into so much.
ldrndll 8y ago
I feel the need to mention, since I've found someone that worked on gov.uk, that I think it is an absolutely remarkable accomplishment. I'm not from the UK, but live and work here (and thus have needed to use the gov.uk website probably more than the average UK citizen). It is a pleasure to use; the UX is great, the copy well written, and invariably I find what I'm looking for. No other govt website that I've used has come close to being as good (and on the contrary they are generally absolutely awful). Thanks for whatever role you played in helping make this happen.
joelanman 8y ago
Disclosure - I work on the team. The GDS equivalent, GOV.UK Frontend, is part of the GOV.UK Design System: - https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ - https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend

by bfirsh 8y ago

IshKebab 8y ago

What is it about GDS that lets them do IT well? Most government IT projects end up complete disasters - the digitisation of the NHS and the fire service "firecontrol" scheme were two recent really insanely expensive projects that ended in utter failure. That seems to be the norm. What do you think makes GDS different?

c-rhodes 8y ago
Most government IT projects are given to contractors after a bidding process, the GDS and NHS Digital are teams of skilled developers working within the government.
- throwawaythrow1 8y ago
  Amongst others, there's fine work being done at DVLA, DVSA, MOJ, DWP and Home Office Digital are in good shape too
  - asplake 8y ago
    Worked at three of those. Yes contractors, but also staff. Part of one my roles as delivery manager at one of the 'exemplar' projects was to train up my replacement (which was cool). I'm a massive fan.
morelikeborelax 8y ago
The government embraced an agile transformation as a legacy enterprise software company would that wanted to remain relevant and compete in the private sector. Because they have the right approach to software development and the services were so far behind and costing so much it couldn't really be objected to as a strategy. The other big factor was that all 3 major political parties agreed at the time and it wasn't blocked. It was moved to focus on the needs of citizens owned by civil servants rather than the convenience of government and farmed out.
jjeaff 8y ago
I think most government projects are contracted out to huge bloated dinosaur companies with crony connections and more people on staff that know how to navigate government purchasing buerocracy than know how to code. In the US we also have a new in house team of coders, led, I believe by xoogler Matt Cutts that has been doing an excellent job as far as I have heard. I think the key here is that outsourcing your tech is rarely superior to highering talent in house.
- user5994461 8y ago
  Having been on the receiving end while working at a contracting company, I wouldn't say that. The process seemed fairly open. The government send requests for proposals and contracting companies can bid. There is no trick involved. I found the requirements to be surprisingly well written on a few I had to read.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  The key is also that you hire talent :)

tempguy9999 8y ago

Does the GDS do the gov.uk universal credit website? That mostly-stable-but-plenty-flaky site that I have to use, that has numerous stupidities to it which I've reported but they don't do anything about? Perhaps you can tell me: how do I get their attention? TIA (edit: because I'd be embarrassed to release something so clunky and sometimes even user-hostile - seriously, how?)

throwawaythrow1 8y ago
That's the DWP, and they know about it and will eventually get to fixing it but it'll take a while
- tempguy9999 8y ago
  Then why won't they even acknowledge it? In fact one of the first things I reported is the banner at the top of the page saying "BETA This is a new service - your feedback will help us to improve it" - but it does nothing - it's just text, and there's no way of giving feedback. I reported that 3+ weeks ago and it's still useless. How about the very-less-than-perfect UI? If they'd done even the most basic user testing they would have found lots of problems already, and that they didn't do such testing shows they weren't looking for problems (which is not a UI problem, it's a systemic dev/management problem). I even sent them a link on how to do UI testing, of course that's not been acknowledged. And the UI will happily hide info you need. Or log you out, losing all the info you've entered because you've not hit the Save button. It's a bit pathetic - I'm a DB guy but I know more about front end usability than they do. And I really doubt they have a test suite of any comprehensiveness. I could go on - I know the staff at the job centers also have had at least one issue (small but avoidable), I was there when it happened. For a service intended for use by millions of people, it's not acceptable, not even close. Shall I go on? I can give specifics, and the total time I've been interacting with this system is probably a couple of hours tops, and I've run into so much.

ldrndll 8y ago

I feel the need to mention, since I've found someone that worked on gov.uk, that I think it is an absolutely remarkable accomplishment. I'm not from the UK, but live and work here (and thus have needed to use the gov.uk website probably more than the average UK citizen). It is a pleasure to use; the UX is great, the copy well written, and invariably I find what I'm looking for. No other govt website that I've used has come close to being as good (and on the contrary they are generally absolutely awful). Thanks for whatever role you played in helping make this happen.

joelanman 8y ago

Disclosure - I work on the team. The GDS equivalent, GOV.UK Frontend, is part of the GOV.UK Design System: - https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ - https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend