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We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

gds.blog.gov.uk

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Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#101

Post by noodlesUK »

LeonardoTolstoy wrote: post #64
meindnoch wrote: post #21

When 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 My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains.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.

I moved there from the US (and since then I've moved back). The main surprise was learning that working for the government is relatively high paying and considered a very nice and challenging job that great programmers coveted. At least that was my impression when a very good systems engineer workmate left my company to start working for gov.uk. I do wish there was a similar system in the US as I would find public se…

Unfortunately this is not true at all (at least for the past decade or more). There are definitely some really high quality people working for GDS, but for the life of me I have no idea how they keep them. Civil Service salaries are extremely low compared to industry rates, and the perks (such as pensions) aren't nearly as good as they used to be.

Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#102

Post by angra_mainyu »

allan_s wrote: post #76
pjc50 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone uses Google Analytics. I don't find it particularly high up any list of real worries.

French government websites use matomo if i m not mistaken

Makes sense, the French have a strong open source community and I believe the creator is French.

Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#104

Post by ekianjo »

pjc50 wrote: post #53
46Bit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, GOV.UK uses Google Analytics, Fastly CDN, AWS containers, and I believe is developing an app. (I worked at GDS until two years ago.)

Everyone uses Google Analytics. I don't find it particularly high up any list of real worries.

Why does the government need to send its data to google exactly?

Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#105

Post by dazc »

meindnoch wrote: post #21

When 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.

If you stay around long enough you'll accumulate a few different log-in id's and find yourself redirected to legacy pages with no way of finding your way back.

The GOV.uk team loves moving things forward and leaving an awful lot of guff behind.

Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#107

Post by ricardobayes »

dazc wrote: post #105
meindnoch wrote: post #21

When 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.

If you stay around long enough you'll accumulate a few different log-in id's and find yourself redirected to legacy pages with no way of finding your way back. The GOV.uk team loves moving things forward and leaving an awful lot of guff behind.

Well in my country they love changing URLs so there is no continuity at all. Any link from a year ago is 99% guaranteed to be 404.

Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#108

Post by dazc »

pjc50 wrote: post #53
46Bit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, GOV.UK uses Google Analytics, Fastly CDN, AWS containers, and I believe is developing an app. (I worked at GDS until two years ago.)

Everyone uses Google Analytics. I don't find it particularly high up any list of real worries.

A lot of people use google analytics for no logical reason what soever though. Typical use case for a small to medium website seems to be a list of most visited pages.

Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#109

Post by jameshart »

mkaszkowiak wrote: post #103

This 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)

This 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.

Re: We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

#110

Post by brokebroadbeat »

V__ wrote: post #3

The 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/ Edit: Apparently there are a lot! Really nice to see.

Thanks so much for this! I’m the design system lead and this has made the team very happy.
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