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We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms
- monkeydust 3y agoOn the surface looks like a great example of inner sourcing.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoIt's actually full open source (MIT licence): https://github.com/alphagov/ https://github.com/alphagov/
- Sheeny96 3y agoHonestly, the people behind the scenes of gov uk are doing gods work. See nothing but great stuff coming out of there.
- buggeryorkshire 3y agoHave been impressed with their work for years, the majority of my governments other IT bits are awful.
- alt227 3y agoI fully agree. Two of my favourites: Holiday API I plug into every ecommerce site I work on: https://www.api.gov.uk/gds/bank-holidays/#bank-holidays https://www.api.gov.uk/gds/bank-holidays/#bank-holidays Domain Email Security checker: https://emailsecuritycheck.service.ncsc.gov.uk/check https://emailsecuritycheck.service.ncsc.gov.uk/check Please share any other favourites!
- pnut 3y agoThe fact that the UK government's bank holiday API has bunting advice just makes my day.
- alias_neo 3y agoWhere did you find this? Is it part of the API response? Would be fun to use this for some digital decor at home. Next bank holiday is Christmas so I've got some time to build something! EDIT: Just found it in the JSON; shame, was hoping it would contain bunting patterns/colours. https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays.json https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays.json
- pjc50 3y agoIt looks like that's only false for Good Friday, which I suppose makes sense that as a Christian you don't "celebrate" the execution of Jesus.
- alias_neo 3y agoIndeed, there are others such as the queen's funeral. Bunting is reserved for celebrations.
- jordanrobinson 3y agoIf you go off this issue it looks like they use tinsel at Christmas, although I'm not sure where that logic is. https://github.com/alphagov/calendars/issues/678 https://github.com/alphagov/calendars/issues/678
- alias_neo 3y agoI'd be interested in taking a look to see if they use different bunting styles for different occasions, my thought process was that I could create some form of digital-bunting in my home to indicate various occasions. As a(n) (English) Brit, I believe this could be quite an excellent indicator of whether I should be drinking Guiness, Tea, Whisky, Pimms, Champagne or Mulled Wine at any given time of the year. I suppose it should live in the Kitchen, near the kettle, or the wine cooler.
- globular-toast 3y agoI love that the bank holiday one tells you whether or not bunting is appropriate on that day. It looks like the ones for which it isn't are ones commemorating death, like the state funeral of Elizabeth II and Good Friday (Crucifixion of Jesus).
- nicoburns 3y agoYes: a plain JSON endpoint with no authentication! It's the perfect way of exposing this kind of data.
- londons_explore 3y agoI wonder how the backend works... Is it a microservice which queries over a globally distributed 'bank holidays' database, which has a frontend for some admin to add/remove bank holidays, and perhaps a custom approval workflow to approve/deny bank holidays, and maybe a system to make new bank holidays 'go live' on a certain date/time? Or is it just a static file someone wrote in vim and checked into git which got hosted as a static asset?
- ZeroGravitas 3y agohttps://github.com/alphagov/calendars/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/alphagov/calendars/blob/master/README.md
- londons_explore 3y agoIt's a static file manually written (and slightly post processed).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- butterknife 3y agoDVLA VES. Never miss a car tax payment or MOT again. https://developer-portal.driver-vehicle-licensing.api.gov.uk/apis/vehicle-enquiry-service/vehicle-enquiry-service-description.html https://developer-portal.driver-vehicle-licensing.api.gov.uk...
- IshKebab 3y ago100%. Well maybe 99%. The tax free childcare website is very frustrating.
- tescocles 3y agoIt seems to be taking a while for the framework to propagate to more independent arms of the government; as well as your example, for the (e.g.) DVLA a lot of the top level information-only pages are in the new framework (and also reside on www.gov.uk), but if you click any link to a form you get taken to the DVLA subdomain (motoring.dvla.gov.uk) and the difference is stark. For the DVLA the site isn't so bad, but I definitely get that slightly disconcerted feeling that something is going to go wrong while you're filling out this important, official form? Which I don't get at all in the new framework.
- IshKebab 3y agoIt's not actually the interface that's the problem. It's the flow. * you have to answer dumb security questions constantly * you pay money in (a lot of money) by direct bank transfer with a long reference code. If you get it wrong I imagine the money is just gone. Not very reliable. * you have to "set up a new payment" every single month because it's designed under the assumption that your bill is identical every month and it never is Actually there is one really annoying interface thing - when you set up a one-off payment it suggests a date that is one month from now, instead of one day from now which is what you want. All it needs is a "tomorrow" button. I've missed payments several times because of this. Oh and it tells you you can't set up a payment for today after you've submitted everything instead of on the date selector.
- blitzar 3y ago> the people behind the scenes of gov uk Those would be the people commonly refered to as incompetent traitorous woke lefty cultural marxists refusing to do the will of the people by the fair and balanced media.
- Aeolun 3y agoThat sounds like the UK media alright. If you take one look at a newspaper stand on any day of the week you’d think the sky was falling.
- V__ 3y agoThe GOV.UK Design System team [1] is really doing great work. Wish there would be more like this from other governments. [1] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/design-system-team/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/design-system-team/ Edit: Apparently there are a lot! Really nice to see.
- ZeKK14 3y agoFrance launched a similar program and publish everything they can on Github See https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/ https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/ and https://github.com/GouvernementFR/dsfr https://github.com/GouvernementFR/dsfr
- totetsu 3y agoand Australia https://www.dta.gov.au/help-and-advice/digital-service-standard/digital-service-standard-criteria https://www.dta.gov.au/help-and-advice/digital-service-stand...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Gigablah 3y agoHere's Singapore's: https://www.designsystem.tech.gov.sg/ https://www.designsystem.tech.gov.sg/
- switch007 3y agoOne niggle I have is the departments’ over-use of forms (from my perspective) in employing the ‘landing page’ pattern. E.g. if you search ‘DVLA vehicle information’, you will land on this page https://www.gov.uk/get-vehicle-information-from-dvla https://www.gov.uk/get-vehicle-information-from-dvla and you have to click ‘Start Now’ to get the page you actually wanted. The same is for logging in to HMRC Personal Tax I’d like the actual form I want on the same page
- imdsm 3y agoI can understand that, but I think it's very subjective. For example, it's an opportunity to explain what the form is, and give any other information (do you need the form? do you need something else?) before the option of, if you're in the right place, click here to begin. I think ultimately, it works quite well.
- switch007 3y agoI do see it from both sides, definitely. It’s just as a frequent user, it gets in the way. Once you understand what the form does, you don’t really need to be told every time.
- globular-toast 3y agoCan't you just bookmark the form itself? The example you linked seems to be a normal link to the form, I don't think it's posting anything?
- switch007 3y agoOh totally, that's a great suggestion. Though with ever-more pages conforming to this pattern, I don't want to have to bookmark them all - that's what a search engine is for. I think it's still a valid discussion about first-time users vs frequent users etc and how much blurb you should show them each time. But they've probably already done the research on this and decided on it for a very specific set of reasons
- colesantiago 3y agoI wish all websites were as good as GOV.UK's, they should be taught in schools, colleges and computer science / web courses as the gold standard in web design. No frills or silly scroll jacking animations plus javascript hogging contraptions that we see in almost all websites these days. This gives me hope.
- azangru 3y ago> No frills or silly scroll jacking animations plus javascript hogging contraptions that we see in almost all websites these days. Still the cookie warnings though :-( I've just visited on my phone the forms page linked in the title, and the first thing that greeted me was a full-screen page-blocking dialog with some cookie nonsense. You can't interact with the contents of the page until you decide how you feel about cookies.
- LunaSea 3y agoIt's a legal requirement
- londons_explore 3y agoBut the size and intrusiveness of the notification are not. At least it doesn't reload the page or have a stupid spinner when you click accept.
- Teandw 3y agoLegal requirement in the UK. No way around it.
- dgb23 3y agoEven if you don't actually track users? > We use Google Analytics to measure how you use the website so we can improve it based on user needs. Google Analytics sets cookies that store anonymised information about how you got to the site, the blog pages you visit, how long you spend on each page and what you click on while you're visiting the site.
- kennydude 3y agoThis is fantastic to see and should hopefully reduce the cost massively for building out, what is effectively forms, for other government services!
- imdsm 3y agoReally proud of what the gov.uk team are doing. Everything is clean, accessible, and predictable across the many different systems. A massive success I think.
- BOOSTERHIDROGEN 3y agoI would like a sharing session from the team behind. Would be awesome hear the thought process, their pain experience etc.
- peter_retief 3y agoTheir forms are excellent, I completed my British citizenship effortlessly, all online.
- nly 3y agoMy condolences
- peter_retief 3y agoHaha it is not that bad, South Africa is not doing that well either.
- meindnoch 3y agoWhen I moved to the UK, one of the surprising things was how well the GOV.UK ecosystem worked. My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains. GOV.UK was a breath of fresh air with its simple, consistent UI, served as static HTML. This is how internet services should look like.
- manojlds 3y agoMy first disappoint in the UK was the DVLA where I was sent to the older form.
- nonrandomstring 3y agoHoorah to that! We are lucky to have wonderful .gov services; highly available, accessible, frictionless, simple, informative, well written and bullshit-free. Maybe the best online central government services in the world - though I hear Estonia are a contender too. However I live in perpetual fear that at any moment some corrupt minister will do a deal with Microsoft and the Devil. Out will go plain HTML and common interoperable standards, simple authentication, and in will come a vipers nest of javascript calling home to monstrous tracking infrastructure, AWS containers, Cloudflare MITM, hooked into some hideous TPM module and mandatory smartphone camera garbage that scans my iris.... Somehow there is a stronghold of common sense and decency standing its ground within our government. I almost wish I could pay a little extra tax to fund them.
- 46Bit 3y agoUmm, GOV.UK uses Google Analytics, Fastly CDN, AWS containers, and I believe is developing an app. (I worked at GDS until two years ago.)
- Aeolun 3y agoLike he said: > a stronghold of common sense and decency I get that OP was going for something else but… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those things when in the right hands.
- greo 3y agoComing from Japan which is notorious for having the worst digital experience, the UK's gov.uk ecosystem is incredible
- Aeolun 3y agoJapan is so terrible because every service does it’s own thing. The absolute best I’ve seen was the national census, which seems to actually have a website not designed before the year 2000. But it’s still inconsistent with all other government services.
- RobotToaster 3y agoseems to be mostly open source too https://github.com/alphagov/forms/wiki https://github.com/alphagov/forms/wiki
- mortallywounded 3y agoI was surprised to see a gov.uk page on progressive enhancement and their thoughts on it (https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/using-progressive-enhancement https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/using-progressi...). I asked on HN yesterday if PE was dead and everyone seems to think it's dead, and yet gov.uk gets lots of love. Maybe it's not dead :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37779408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37779408
- mhitza 3y agoPlease refrain from talking in absolutes, when you got 3 comments on your question yesterday. Progressive enhancement is nice, and user friendly, and better UX overall. But when you get started with modern frontend stacks nowadays it's out of the question. Whereas, I and others like me, that use a classical backend framework that spits out HTML might do a better job (but not always, due to time and budget).
- globular-toast 3y agoI've never heard this being called progressive enhancement before. I always thought it was just the obvious proper way to do things, but that people don't do it out of laziness. It's nice to know there is a name I can use to refer to it. I used to design sites like this explicitly in the mid-00s. I would explicitly test with no js and no CSS. I still aim to do it to this day, but it's hard to get others to do it when most web devs are happy to throw shit at a wall and see what sticks.
- georgepalm 3y ago[flagged]
- adamretter 3y agoThis looks great :-) However reading the How it works section, it states: "Each form needs an email address to be set for completed forms to be sent to when they’re submitted" So... erm is an email Inbox needed for integration? - how very 1990! In addition to email, for use by developers in other UK GOV departments - surely HTTP PUT of an XML or JSON document to a user nominated URL (with provided auth token) would have been trivial to achieve?
- globalise83 3y agoYou can optionally pass an onSubmit function that will return the fax number that the form should be submitted to after printing.
- motogpjimbo 3y agoIt looks like this service is intended to replace the kind of random "notify us of a missing manhole cover" type forms that are found in their thousands on government websites. For those types of applications, emailing the form to a relevant mailbox is probably the correct thing to do, and in many cases it's the way the existing forms already work. Only a small fraction of government services will have their own custom backend application supporting them.
- moritonal 3y agoI get the sentiment, but an email is just a standardised queue. What were you going to do after the HTTP PUT? My guess is it onto a queue.
- londons_explore 3y agoIt's a standardized queue with a lot of features too... You can set up filters and forwarding rules. It doesn't require a programmer or special knowledge to do so. The queue can be viewed by one or many humans. Messages don't have to be dealt with in-order. read/unread state, stars, labels, drafts all allow construction of advanced workflows with no specialist knowledge. Sure, all these things can be done better with special software, but there is a massive benefit to something that all your existing untrained and probably-not-well-paid employees can set up themselves.
- svilen_dobrev 3y agoif only this short "manual on how to make maintainable-software" below was a) studied and b) followed ... the software-world would be much-much better place. (and Avoiding the several-years-learning-500-pages-books-by-heart.. without ever understanding why those are what they are) https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology
- mkaszkowiak 3y agoThis is good news, but aren't well-phrased questions a strong suit of Gov.uk forms? Other government departments might not be familiar with proper guidelines for form creation. Has this issue been approached? (curious, as I'm not British)
- jameshart 3y agoThis is the double edged sword of making a standardized toolset like this available. It’s now easier than ever to make a government form! And, even when a process might be better delivered via a different mechanism… a form becomes a low friction way to do it. And a bad form might be worse than no form.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoI'm British. I have no insider information about what the Government Digital Service do about other departments' use of their toolkit, but just as a citizen, I can tell you that the difference between the GDS sites and external ones is extremely stark. The passport application form[1], for instance, is smooth and well-designed, and the questions are well-written - a good example of the Government Digital Service's excellent design and solid implementation. Perhaps the only downside is the rather disconcerting photograph evaluation tool that suggested to me that my photograph was 'invalid' due to being 'in black-and-white', somehow missing my blue chequered shirt. The whole of the Gov.UK site loads very quickly for me, which is an additional benefit of the focus on accessibility. You can 'view source' on your Web browser and see the very comprehensive metadata, both as JSON-LD and traditional <meta> tags. The 'Universal Credit service'[2] (the recent social welfare system), however, was seemingly not developed by the Government Digital Service, and it shows! It is still marked as 'Beta' years after release, uses a shockingly insecure authentication for sensitive personal data, and has a video conferencing system that can't show video. To top it all off, they very politely request feedback... but provide no feedback form. I think that illustrates well how easy it is for an excellent toolkit to be abused in the hands of the incompetent or the underfunded, not that the latter is likely to apply in this case[3]! I hope this provides some context related to your question. [1]: https://www.gov.uk/apply-renew-passport https://www.gov.uk/apply-renew-passport [2]: https://www.universal-credit.service.gov.uk/sign-in https://www.universal-credit.service.gov.uk/sign-in [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Credit#Implementation_costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Credit#Implementatio...
- ricardobayes 3y agoI wish my country invested more into IT, most of the sites are outright broken or even lying to you - saying there are no available appointments online, but if you call up, you can book for next day even.
- jameshart 3y agoI wonder if they have given any thought to the possibility that if you’ve standardized forms, you could also expose all those services as APIs?
- habosa 3y agoJust adding to the chorus here: I moved from the US to the UK and like any immigrant anywhere I had to fill out a lot of forms. Especially during covid, there was seemingly always a new form to fill. The Gov.uk forms are literally the most straightforward and usable internet forms I've ever used. As close to perfect as you can get.
- notpushkin 3y agoIf anybody wants to try figure out how to run this... Docker images: https://github.com/notpushkin?tab=packages&tab=packages&q=govuk-forms- https://github.com/notpushkin?tab=packages&tab=packages&q=go... Simple stub for the signon service (likely needs further modification): https://gitlab.com/notpushkin/stupidauth/container_registry https://gitlab.com/notpushkin/stupidauth/container_registry And the Docker Compose stack: https://gist.github.com/notpushkin/f174b52efc6285e6be30fb66bb48153f https://gist.github.com/notpushkin/f174b52efc6285e6be30fb66b... (works with https://lunni.dev/ https://lunni.dev/ or Docker Swarm + Traefik) If you do manage to run it please ping me, I'm also interested in trying it out! — Edit: discusson on GitHub: https://github.com/alphagov/forms/discussions/106 https://github.com/alphagov/forms/discussions/106
- EToS 3y agoIts a great example of how to use design systems
- thunkshift1 3y agoThis is basically a govt created turbo tax tool but for every govt form ever.. nice.
- curtis3389 3y ago> We know this is not going to cover all routing needs though - in the future, we’d like to look at building branching (two separate sets of questions depending on the answer), and later down the line we might be able to expand our routing so you can add routes to more than one answer, and also routes based on a combination of answers. I'm very interested how they build a UI for branching. Communicating branching conditions visually and clearly without just handing the user a programming language is a hard problem.
- Octabrain 3y agoI have to admit, as a Spaniard that moved 7 years ago to the UK, that the government related sites are an absolute pleasure to work with. Taxes, information of any kind etc everything clear and straightforward. I take my hat off. PS: Does anyone know the stack they use?
- FrustratedPers 3y agoEven the NHS website is so clean and accessible. I think every EU country should just adopt their format.
- neillyons 3y agogov.uk manages some of the content using Whitehall which looks like a custom CMS using Ruby on Rails https://github.com/alphagov/whitehall https://github.com/alphagov/whitehall nhs.uk is built using Wagtail, a Django based CMS.
- creativenolo 3y agoI had to fill out a companies legal questionnaires and forms. The company had pinched the gov.uk format. It was such a relief to find a company using something familiar and well thought out instead of some fancy survey form or email.
- yaseer 3y agoGov.uk is probably the greatest thing our government has achieved for quite a while. That's not hyperbole.
- dgroshev 3y agoIf you want to peek behind the curtain, "Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy Is Delivery" by Andrew Greenway et al [1] is full of advice and background on what it takes to launch and operate something like GDS. Something that fascinated me: how they were planning the departure of GDS leadership years in advance. GDS had to push changes through, which means making enemies, which means eventually being squeezed out. So they just assumed that will happen and adjusted organisational structures, making sure there will be new leaders in place. Just incredible level of professionalism. [1]: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Transformation-Scale-Strategy-Perspectives-dp-191301939X/dp/191301939X/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Transformation-Scale-Strate...
- ulrischa 3y agoGermany is far away from something like this