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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

#121

Post by matthewcford »

switch007 wrote: post #11

One 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 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

This is so that search can work, they index service start pages so they have results for services that are hosted on other domains. There is also something about having a consistance UX, at least to the point of handoff to the service (which might not have been updated yet). The start pages also provide the user with guidance were say the service might be only avalible at certain times, or if you need documentation ready before you use it.

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

#122

Post by aaronsnow »

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 My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains.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

In the US government, take a look at https://www.usds.gov/apply and https://join.tts.gsa.gov/ — and there are many more opportunities emerging as the USG gets better at all of this.

More generally for federal and state/local government opportunities to use your technology expertise to make a difference, these folks are excellent: https://techtalentproject.org/tech-talent/

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

#123

Post by bitcharmer »

46Bit wrote: post #43
nonrandomstring wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoorah 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…

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.)

Why does that matter?

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

#124

Post by dazc »

noodlesUK wrote: post #101
LeonardoTolstoy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a friend who is a civil servant (ONS). She would be the first to concede that salaries are low but there are other benefits that compensate. Working from home 3 days a week, generous time off in lieu for the odd extra hours worked and so on.

I should add she is late 50's and the prospect of finding work elsewhere in a comparable role would be very unlikely.

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

#125

Post by Ylpertnodi »

jeff_vader wrote: post #119
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.

The design, look and feel is great. Authenticating / proving your identity on the other hand is lacking: https://www.gov.uk/using-your-gov-uk-one-login/proving-your-... Meanwhile, at least in some EU countries, you can authenticate using your identity card and USB smartcard reader.

Proving your id: passport or ID card, 'new' driving license, domestic bill. There's a lot of ex-pats don't have the last two. Repeatedly being told to log in to the site is a pain if its impossible. Extremely well designed, though.

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

#126

Post by hooverd »

dazc wrote: post #113
doublesocket wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side of this is local government technology. Truly some of the worst crimes against web development have been committed by local councils, or rather their outsourcing partners. The service that takes that crown in my experience is tarantopermits.com, a parking permit management system that fills me with rage just thinking about it.

I often wonder why so many Local Authorities and Gov Departments have to have their own unique web portals? There must be a massive cost-saving opportunity here.

Well, they probably want to be able to update them as things change without waiting so many weeks on a ticket to central IT. I can't imagine they're doing anything unique though, so the best of both worlds could be central IT providing tools and managed hosting.

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

#127

Post by tannhaeuser »

46Bit wrote: post #43
nonrandomstring wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoorah 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…

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.)

GA and external CDNs require cookie banner/consent under GDPR (which is still valid in UK AFAIK). So that alone should be reason enough to avoid it.

But you can never be sure: very recently, I'm seeing (unnecessary) popups coming up informing me about the site not using cookies! To make up for the phantom pain of not having one in EU where "real" sites do have cookie dialogs? The web and its self-referential UI idioms have become a strange place indeed.

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

#128

Post by mtillman »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #34
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.

Hoorah 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…

Singapore recently did a deal with a company no one has heard of for their immigration process and the results are cameras that don’t work to the point of the officials needing to manually adjust them, forms that don’t contain consistent data across pages, and my favorite “save a photo of the confirm just in case lah.” The old system just worked, the new system insists upon APPs.

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

#129

Post by koo5_2 »

mozey wrote: post #67
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 applied for a UK visa from South-Africa about a year ago. To start my application I had to submit a form on this domain. The navigation to the form was obscured by a giant banner about the Ukraine invasion and a message about how service levels might be reduced due to refugees... no matter how I resized my browser window I couldn't get to the part of the page behind the banner. Eventually I opened up the Dev Tools…

You passed the first test!

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

#130

Post by bzmrgonz »

PaulHoule wrote: post #80
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.)

It's the HTML forms that are good and Angular, React and all that which are bad.

I wonder what technology they are using to wrangle these forms... I remember reading an article a few days ago concerning vuejs project to do something similar.
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