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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

#141

Post by whimsicalism »

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 My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains.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

how else do you think they were planning on reducing service levels?

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

#143

Post by switch007 »

arpinum wrote: post #85
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.)

gov.uk is not a monolith, different departments can make different decisions. There is no mandate for AWS containers or Fastly CDN.

They have to provision from a market place of approve service though right?

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

#144

Post by gerdesj »

doublesocket wrote: post #96
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 My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains.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 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.

Are you sure:

"Welcome to tarantopermits.com"

"This domain name is parked for FREE by fasthosts.co.uk"

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

#145

Post by doublesocket »

gerdesj wrote: post #144
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.

Are you sure: "Welcome to tarantopermits.com" "This domain name is parked for FREE by fasthosts.co.uk"

Yes, they're so incompetent they haven't changed their parking page. See google search results:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=tarantope...

It's all on subdomains, e.g. https://wandsworth.tarantopermits.com

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

#146

Post by bpye »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #120
jeff_vader wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It can be done without an ID card and card reader too. BankID is what we use in Norway.

I’m guessing that’s similar to what we have in Canada - which is essentially sign on through a banking provider? A couple provinces have their own sign on system with their services card now too - BC included.

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

#147

Post by whimsicalism »

aaronsnow wrote: post #122
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…

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/

The problem with working in the government/nonprofit sphere is that you will always be treated as second fiddle/grunt work to the real movers and shakers.

I mean just look at the breakdown of who runs that “tech talent project” to see what I mean. In the industry, ideally, decisions are being made and executed by other technical people. It’s part of what has made Silicon Valley so uber successful.

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

#148

Post by gadders »

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…

>>simple authentication

This is my only gripe. Every time I do self assessment or complete my tax returns as a contractor I had to find some arcane combination of government gateway ID, password, authentication app etc etc. It's so secure it stops you paying the government money.

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

#149

Post by gadders »

doublesocket wrote: post #96
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 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.

It takes the piss that you have to pay to park outside your own house anyway.

I mean, a nominal fee enough to correlate car registration with owners address, but not £210 like google told me it costs in Wandsworth. I bet about £10 of that goes to the council.

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

#150

Post by gadders »

dazc wrote: post #124
noodlesUK wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I bet the pension would help as well.
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