At the other end of the spectrum, the Manchester city council site: http://www.manchester.gov.uk/ Definitely not what you might expect!
Wow! That's the best looking government run site I've seen
DWP - Services and benefits online
21–30 of 41 posts
Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#22This is a good reminder about how the "support popular browsers" approach of web development is flawed. And how sites, and thus the code driving them, live a lot longer than expected. This kind of technical debt accumulates, fixing it involves rebuilding it (probably a clean slate approach, since there are issues caused by the underlying Siebel baseline).
It's also a great comparison with the GDS Team's gov.uk initiative, the difference in quality is distinctively noticeable. That quality is based, not on the popular browsers of today, but based on the fundamental premise of the web as an open and platform neutral environment. I guess, in 5, even 10 years, this iteration of gov.uk will still be a reference example of a high quality web development build.
I know a couple of the GDS Team behind the gov.uk project are regulars here. To them, thanks for the amazing work, the attention to detail. I think this is the first time where a UK government organisation/agency is leading web development by example.
This is a great example of high quality web development being done at the fraction of the budget given to high profile government IT project failures. Certainly, smaller, agile, internal, passionate team of skilled individuals outperforms the huge contracts to IT/Consulting companies.
Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't redirect because this is the only way to apply online for "Attendance Allowance (AA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA adult and child), Overseas State Pension – if you are a non-UK resident (including Channel Islands)". You can download a PDF to mail in from the nice new site, but if you want to do it online the new site will direct you back here. (Not wanting to seem harsh, some things are being done wel…
DWP are in the process of transitioning to their new gov.uk site. It's all well and good criticising their old website, but what do you propose they do about it? Transition to a new site? That's exactly what they're doing.
I'm proposing that we don't pretend that this is an old, unused site that someone has stumbled across because goverment IT is doing such a good job not breaking old hyperlinks.
It's still in active use and it's still terrible. Those are simple facts that doing the relatively easy job of moving a bunch of PDFs and static web content to a new site are not going to change.
Government IT (in the UK and elsewhere) has been, and still is, totally fucked up. Let's not hide from that fact because it's only by publicizing the sorry state that it's in that things like alpha.gov.uk can get any traction compared with the traditional way of doing things. But even that's low-hanging fruit compared with the regular billion pound disasters that government IT procurement regularly delivers.
Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#24At the other end of the spectrum, the Manchester city council site: http://www.manchester.gov.uk/ Definitely not what you might expect!
Manchester are on it. Free wi-fi in a number of places and MadLab. As a resident I'm not that surprised :)
Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#25Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#26Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#27To be fair to the DWP, this is their old site. One of the things the British Government is doing properly at the moment is their digital strategy, their new web site gov.uk has won multiple awards. If you go to the DWP's home page it does tell you it's an old site, and should probably redirect, but it's unfair to criticise something that's not the current implementation. Most of the links from that front page go to t…
It doesn't redirect because this is the only way to apply online for "Attendance Allowance (AA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA adult and child), Overseas State Pension – if you are a non-UK resident (including Channel Islands)". You can download a PDF to mail in from the nice new site, but if you want to do it online the new site will direct you back here. (Not wanting to seem harsh, some things are being done wel…
I find it quite ironic since I see being confined to IE as having a disability. It almost serves to me as an inspiration to keep myself intact.
Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#28To be fair to the DWP, this is their old site. One of the things the British Government is doing properly at the moment is their digital strategy, their new web site gov.uk has won multiple awards. If you go to the DWP's home page it does tell you it's an old site, and should probably redirect, but it's unfair to criticise something that's not the current implementation. Most of the links from that front page go to t…
It doesn't redirect because this is the only way to apply online for "Attendance Allowance (AA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA adult and child), Overseas State Pension – if you are a non-UK resident (including Channel Islands)". You can download a PDF to mail in from the nice new site, but if you want to do it online the new site will direct you back here. (Not wanting to seem harsh, some things are being done wel…
[deleted]
Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#29Re: DWP - Services and benefits online
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
DWP are in the process of transitioning to their new gov.uk site. It's all well and good criticising their old website, but what do you propose they do about it? Transition to a new site? That's exactly what they're doing.
I'm proposing that we don't pretend that this is an old, unused site that someone has stumbled across because goverment IT is doing such a good job not breaking old hyperlinks. It's still in active use and it's still terrible. Those are simple facts that doing the relatively easy job of moving a bunch of PDFs and static web content to a new site are not going to change. Government IT (in the UK and elsewhere) has bee…
Nobody is pretending anything. It's the old DWP website. The DWP has a new home on gov.uk, which is much better, and is transitioning — actually rather quickly, given all the red tape that must be involved — to this new site as we speak.
The old website only persists because a few remaining functions have not been transitioned yet. It's rubbish, but it's actively being replaced. Criticising it is pointless.
It's interesting that you refer to alpha.gov.uk. The gov.uk site left the alpha stage and officially launched in October 2012, and as much as government IT projects are usually a disaster, you can't deny gov.uk is a major step in the right direction.