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Would anyone from the Government Digital Service [1] in the UK care to comment on this? GDS is a world-class operation which has many smart people using modern

Would anyone from the Government Digital Service [1] in the UK care to comment on this? GDS is a world-class operation which has many smart people using modern technology to solve real problems for UK citizens. Much (all?) of the work is open source [2]. [1] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/ [2] https://github.com/alphagov https://github.com/alphagov

frabcus 12y ago
I'm not from GDS - however they're one of our customers at ScraperWiki, and I know lots of the people there (via the digital civics NGO mySociety which we started over 10 years ago). There's been lots of interest in GDS from the US over the years, people over there saying "why haven't we copied it yet?". As far as I can tell the US Digital Service and 18F are that copying in a good way - taking lots of the lessons from GDS and applying to the US situation. As an example of the kind of thing, see the UK's Service Design Manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual - there are sections for developers, designers and so on. So basically, if you're good at tech, and want better Government websites (who doesn't!), go help them :)
frabcus 12y ago
I'm not from GDS - however they're one of our customers at ScraperWiki, and I know lots of the people there (via the digital civics NGO mySociety which we started over 10 years ago). There's been lots of interest in GDS from the US over the years, people over there saying "why haven't we copied it yet?". As far as I can tell the US Digital Service and 18F are that copying in a good way - taking lots of the lessons from GDS and applying to the US situation. As an example of the kind of thing, see the UK's Service Design Manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual - there are sections for developers, designers and so on. So basically, if you're good at tech, and want better Government websites (who doesn't!), go help them :)
Spearchucker 12y ago
GDS in the UK is staffed by a lot of ex-Guardian people, and that is telling. They're amazingly good at building web sites, and shockingly bad at enterprise.There's also a lot of ego in the senior technical staff (technical architects). GDS is very good, but GDS faces some challenges. Introspection takes humility.
yoz 12y ago
I'm not part of GDS, though I used to (like frabcus) volunteer for MySociety (or, more accurately, for FaxYourMP & TheyWorkForYou, which were later pulled together as MySociety). Also like frabcus, I know quite a few of the GDS folks. I now live in the Bay Area and work for 18F. GDS has been hugely inspirational for us, and we talk to them fairly often. Personally, it's their model of focusing on user needs, using continual user research to drive design and implementation that speaks loudest to me. Far too much public-facing government IT has been driven by department needs rather than user needs. If you talk to UK citizens about GOV.UK, they mostly seem pleasantly surprised by how well it Just Works.

frabcus 12y ago

I'm not from GDS - however they're one of our customers at ScraperWiki, and I know lots of the people there (via the digital civics NGO mySociety which we started over 10 years ago). There's been lots of interest in GDS from the US over the years, people over there saying "why haven't we copied it yet?". As far as I can tell the US Digital Service and 18F are that copying in a good way - taking lots of the lessons from GDS and applying to the US situation. As an example of the kind of thing, see the UK's Service Design Manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual https://www.gov.uk/service-manual - there are sections for developers, designers and so on. So basically, if you're good at tech, and want better Government websites (who doesn't!), go help them :)

frabcus 12y ago

Spearchucker 12y ago

GDS in the UK is staffed by a lot of ex-Guardian people, and that is telling. They're amazingly good at building web sites, and shockingly bad at enterprise.There's also a lot of ego in the senior technical staff (technical architects). GDS is very good, but GDS faces some challenges. Introspection takes humility.

yoz 12y ago

I'm not part of GDS, though I used to (like frabcus) volunteer for MySociety (or, more accurately, for FaxYourMP & TheyWorkForYou, which were later pulled together as MySociety). Also like frabcus, I know quite a few of the GDS folks. I now live in the Bay Area and work for 18F. GDS has been hugely inspirational for us, and we talk to them fairly often. Personally, it's their model of focusing on user needs, using continual user research to drive design and implementation that speaks loudest to me. Far too much public-facing government IT has been driven by department needs rather than user needs. If you talk to UK citizens about GOV.UK, they mostly seem pleasantly surprised by how well it Just Works.