5 ms·

UK government online services are, in general, excellent. Easy to follow, clear, reliable. Accessible from almost any hardware, wouldn’t surprise me if my calcu

UK government online services are, in general, excellent. Easy to follow, clear, reliable. Accessible from almost any hardware, wouldn’t surprise me if my calculator could render it. They put to shame most (all?) commercial sites I can think of. I never felt in need of an FAQ on their websites.

toto444 5y ago
I was of this opinion until I caught COVID and tried to understand the rules for self isolation. I am quite an edge case in this regard. I found multiple pages saying the same thing with a different ambiguous wording. Some pages even explicitly contradicting each others. It's added a lot of stress to the whole self isolation + sickness situation.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  To be fair to the GDS team, I think it’s the policy itself rather than the presentation of it that’s confusing and self-contradictory in this case.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    Yeah, the first months were a mess. Contradictory instructions abound, even if you read all of the ordinances, you are still left unsure if you're on the right side of the law (or worse, simultaneously on the correct and wrong side of the law!)
- steerablesafe 5y ago
  I know you are replying about "gov.uk" being clear or not, but I would just like to add that a FAQ would probably not cover an edge case.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  I put that more down to inept guidance given by the government rather than the excellent work of the folks maintaining government websites. When the government doesn't even follow it's own recommendations and different MPs offer different opinions (and even the PM giving advice that contradicts his own earlier advice!!) it doesn't exactly make the job easy for anyone who needs to document the rules.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  Says more about U.K. covid guidelines than GDS. I’m pretty certain our government has created deliberately ambiguous guidance so they can’t get called out for accidentally punishing people if fall into an extreme edge case.
ssl232 5y ago
Agreed. The others here saying FAQs are useful should try gov.uk and understood why they shouldn't be needed. Using gov.uk you really get an idea a lot of research and testing has gone into the text phrasing and structure and the overall look and feel of the site. It's really excellent. I've since seen other countries' government websites copy many of its design aspects - the highest form of flattery. It's all organised by Government Digital Service, who produce "government as a platform" tools [1]. Once you realise that this group have managed to get various IT departments spread across the whole UK government to stick to a common set of tools and design rules, it's clearly an even greater achievement (see their "design system" [2]). All the more so given how large government IT projects normally turn out. One more for good measure: the "design principles" page: [3]. [1] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/category/government-as-a-platform/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/category/government-as-a-platform/ [2] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ [3] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles
- dash2 5y ago
  I think the backstory here is that at some point the government hired the team from theyworkforyou.com (and various other citizen/politics websites), who were clearly very smart and motivated. Wonder if anyone knows more details.
  - ssl232 5y ago
    Interesting - it's clear that some talented people on a mission were put in the right place at the right time. I too would be interested to hear from anyone that knows more!
    - iam-TJ 5y ago
      Fortunately there's an FAQ^h^h^h Story about that: "A GDS Story" Introduction The most common questions we’re asked by visitors to GDS are things like: “How did it all start in the first place?” “How did you get where you are now?” “How can I get my government/team/organisation to do similar things?” This is an attempt to answer those. https://gds.blog.gov.uk/story/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/story/
dazc 5y ago
In general, I agree. However, as someone with an individual tax account, 2 business tax accounts and one general purpose account, far from perfect.
- dash2 5y ago
  I find the individual tax return very simple. Compare it to the misery they have in the US.
  - midasuni 5y ago
    So is solving formats last theorem
  - drstewart 5y ago
    The individual tax return in the US is very simple for 90% of people
    - mellavora 5y ago
      I'm not sure about that 90% figure, seems a little high. 25 million people receive the earned income tax credit (i.e. they are poor), and are at high risk of audit https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-now-audits-poor-americans-at-about-the-same-rate-as-the-top-1-percent https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-now-audits-poor-ameri... 9 million are expats, for whom US tax filing is a special type of hell 15 million are self-employed, which means lots of extra filing https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/self-employment-in-the-united-states/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/self-employment-in-the-un... putting us at circa 50M out of circa 167M returns filed https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/filing-season-statistics-for-week-ending-october-22-2021 https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/filing-season-statistics-for-we... means US tax returns are rather complicated for 30% of people before we start to consider high-income earners.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        I just went to look up how many people file the 1040EZ, and realized that it doesn't even exist anymore. Today I learned.
ggm 5y ago
Agreed. I had to negotiate HM Customs & Excise and pensions pages as a non resident. I tookaway three things 1) they are implementing material design rigidly but sensibly. Consistent style is used to denote active and passive elements. 2) if you comment in feedback to the design they respond. They will even try to respond about non web aspects of negotiating government: it may very coincidental but a year after I fed back we need better international banking paths to pay things british resident people can pay online but expatriates must do as paper cheques (no staples, plain pins may be used to attach cheque to covering letter) they implemented international funds transfer with IBAN. 3) it's plain English. They remorselessly police jargon out.
sbacic 5y ago
Indeed they are. It's a pity that more governments haven't followed their example or that having clear, easy to use government websites is somehow still a too high bar to clear for so many countries. I'm not sure the average Brit appreciates how good these online services are, on account of never having to use the "average" government website.

toto444 5y ago

I was of this opinion until I caught COVID and tried to understand the rules for self isolation. I am quite an edge case in this regard. I found multiple pages saying the same thing with a different ambiguous wording. Some pages even explicitly contradicting each others. It's added a lot of stress to the whole self isolation + sickness situation.

nicoburns 5y ago
To be fair to the GDS team, I think it’s the policy itself rather than the presentation of it that’s confusing and self-contradictory in this case.
- zinekeller 5y ago
  Yeah, the first months were a mess. Contradictory instructions abound, even if you read all of the ordinances, you are still left unsure if you're on the right side of the law (or worse, simultaneously on the correct and wrong side of the law!)
steerablesafe 5y ago
I know you are replying about "gov.uk" being clear or not, but I would just like to add that a FAQ would probably not cover an edge case.
hnlmorg 5y ago
I put that more down to inept guidance given by the government rather than the excellent work of the folks maintaining government websites. When the government doesn't even follow it's own recommendations and different MPs offer different opinions (and even the PM giving advice that contradicts his own earlier advice!!) it doesn't exactly make the job easy for anyone who needs to document the rules.
avianlyric 5y ago
Says more about U.K. covid guidelines than GDS. I’m pretty certain our government has created deliberately ambiguous guidance so they can’t get called out for accidentally punishing people if fall into an extreme edge case.

ssl232 5y ago

Agreed. The others here saying FAQs are useful should try gov.uk and understood why they shouldn't be needed. Using gov.uk you really get an idea a lot of research and testing has gone into the text phrasing and structure and the overall look and feel of the site. It's really excellent. I've since seen other countries' government websites copy many of its design aspects - the highest form of flattery. It's all organised by Government Digital Service, who produce "government as a platform" tools [1]. Once you realise that this group have managed to get various IT departments spread across the whole UK government to stick to a common set of tools and design rules, it's clearly an even greater achievement (see their "design system" [2]). All the more so given how large government IT projects normally turn out. One more for good measure: the "design principles" page: [3]. [1] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/category/government-as-a-platform/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/category/government-as-a-platform/ [2] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ [3] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles

dash2 5y ago
I think the backstory here is that at some point the government hired the team from theyworkforyou.com (and various other citizen/politics websites), who were clearly very smart and motivated. Wonder if anyone knows more details.
- ssl232 5y ago
  Interesting - it's clear that some talented people on a mission were put in the right place at the right time. I too would be interested to hear from anyone that knows more!
  - iam-TJ 5y ago
    Fortunately there's an FAQ^h^h^h Story about that: "A GDS Story" Introduction The most common questions we’re asked by visitors to GDS are things like: “How did it all start in the first place?” “How did you get where you are now?” “How can I get my government/team/organisation to do similar things?” This is an attempt to answer those. https://gds.blog.gov.uk/story/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/story/

dazc 5y ago

In general, I agree. However, as someone with an individual tax account, 2 business tax accounts and one general purpose account, far from perfect.

dash2 5y ago
I find the individual tax return very simple. Compare it to the misery they have in the US.
- midasuni 5y ago
  So is solving formats last theorem
- drstewart 5y ago
  The individual tax return in the US is very simple for 90% of people
  - mellavora 5y ago
    I'm not sure about that 90% figure, seems a little high. 25 million people receive the earned income tax credit (i.e. they are poor), and are at high risk of audit https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-now-audits-poor-americans-at-about-the-same-rate-as-the-top-1-percent https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-now-audits-poor-ameri... 9 million are expats, for whom US tax filing is a special type of hell 15 million are self-employed, which means lots of extra filing https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/self-employment-in-the-united-states/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/self-employment-in-the-un... putting us at circa 50M out of circa 167M returns filed https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/filing-season-statistics-for-week-ending-october-22-2021 https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/filing-season-statistics-for-we... means US tax returns are rather complicated for 30% of people before we start to consider high-income earners.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I just went to look up how many people file the 1040EZ, and realized that it doesn't even exist anymore. Today I learned.

ggm 5y ago

Agreed. I had to negotiate HM Customs & Excise and pensions pages as a non resident. I tookaway three things 1) they are implementing material design rigidly but sensibly. Consistent style is used to denote active and passive elements. 2) if you comment in feedback to the design they respond. They will even try to respond about non web aspects of negotiating government: it may very coincidental but a year after I fed back we need better international banking paths to pay things british resident people can pay online but expatriates must do as paper cheques (no staples, plain pins may be used to attach cheque to covering letter) they implemented international funds transfer with IBAN. 3) it's plain English. They remorselessly police jargon out.

sbacic 5y ago

Indeed they are. It's a pity that more governments haven't followed their example or that having clear, easy to use government websites is somehow still a too high bar to clear for so many countries. I'm not sure the average Brit appreciates how good these online services are, on account of never having to use the "average" government website.