We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by dgroshev » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 11:32 PM UTC

If you want to peek behind the curtain, "Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy Is Delivery" by Andrew Greenway et al [1] is full of advice and background on what it takes to launch and operate something like GDS.

Something that fascinated me: how they were planning the departure of GDS leadership years in advance. GDS had to push changes through, which means making enemies, which means eventually being squeezed out. So they just assumed that will happen and adjusted organisational structures, making sure there will be new leaders in place. Just incredible level of professionalism.

[1]: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Transformation-Scale-Strate...

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

#182

Post by bloqs » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 12:11 AM UTC

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 My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains.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

I would say that this is true for the breed of programmers that like to help other people, who I respect over anyone who goes for higher paying work. Gov.uk has some real stars associated with it

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

#183

Post by switch007 » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 10:03 AM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #174

switch007 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do see it from both sides, definitely. It’s just as a frequent user, it gets in the way. Once you understand what the form does, you don’t really need to be told every time.

Can't you just bookmark the form itself? The example you linked seems to be a normal link to the form, I don't think it's posting anything?

Oh totally, that's a great suggestion. Though with ever-more pages conforming to this pattern, I don't want to have to bookmark them all - that's what a search engine is for.

I think it's still a valid discussion about first-time users vs frequent users etc and how much blurb you should show them each time. But they've probably already done the research on this and decided on it for a very specific set of reasons

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

#184

Post by IshKebab » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 1:31 PM UTC

tescocles wrote: post #40

IshKebab wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. Well maybe 99%. The tax free childcare website is very frustrating.

It seems to be taking a while for the framework to propagate to more independent arms of the government; as well as your example, for the (e.g.) DVLA a lot of the top level information-only pages are in the new framework (and also reside on www.gov.uk), but if you click any link to a form you get taken to the DVLA subdomain (motoring.dvla.gov.uk) and the difference is stark. For the DVLA the site isn't so bad, but I…

It's not actually the interface that's the problem. It's the flow.

* you have to answer dumb security questions constantly

* you pay money in (a lot of money) by direct bank transfer with a long reference code. If you get it wrong I imagine the money is just gone. Not very reliable.

* you have to "set up a new payment" every single month because it's designed under the assumption that your bill is identical every month and it never is

Actually there is one really annoying interface thing - when you set up a one-off payment it suggests a date that is one month from now, instead of one day from now which is what you want. All it needs is a "tomorrow" button. I've missed payments several times because of this.

Oh and it tells you you can't set up a payment for today after you've submitted everything instead of on the date selector.

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

#185

Post by wiedelphine » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

adamretter wrote: post #45

This looks great :-) However reading the How it works section, it states: "Each form needs an email address to be set for completed forms to be sent to when they’re submitted" So... erm is an email Inbox needed for integration? - how very 1990! In addition to email, for use by developers in other UK GOV departments - surely HTTP PUT of an XML or JSON document to a user nominated URL (with provided auth token) would h…

As far as I know, the audience for gov.uk forms is teams that have no developers. So for that audience, email is very much the right approach.

Often the thing you are replacing is 'fill in this pdf and email to this inbox', so it allows people to improve things for external users without changing their workflow.

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

#186

Post by ulrischa » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

Germany is far away from something like this

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

#187

Post by wizzwizz4 » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #39

ZeKK14 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France launched a similar program and publish everything they can on Github See https://www.systeme-de-design.gouv.fr/ and https://github.com/GouvernementFR/dsfr

I find it really funny that it's published on GitHub with the MIT license, but with a disclaimer it's illegal to use it outside of government websites. It's great that it's publicly available, like many other public stuff the French Government is doing like https://beta.gouv.fr/ or the tax calculators, but it's still funny.

Makes sense to me: MIT doesn't give a trademark / design mark license.

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

#188

Post by lambic » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 7:21 PM UTC

kamel3d wrote: post #70

lambic wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why use google analytics? There are better trackers for this kind of thing that don't need cookies and can be self-hosted.

Could you recommend some alternatives to Google Analytics? I am developing a plugin for Photoshop using UXP, and I have been unable to integrate it with GA.

We use Matomo and have been fairly happy with it.

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

#189

Post by Aerbil313 » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 10:20 PM UTC

sonthonax wrote: post #165

arpinum wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They tend to use the tools provided by Government Digital Services.

Yes, this is the point and the reason it's so good. Centralization and standardization. I'm so glad that my country (Turkey) has made big leaps in centralization of digital services in the recent years with E-Government platform. I even recently wrote the Presidency Public Communcations Center, suggesting every citizen should have a government-issued email address and that an email account must be a right. E-mail is a necessity at this point and it's unacceptable that anyone can lose access to their email account just because Google's ML models decided he's a bot. The government could easily verify every real citizen.

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

#190

Post by Aerbil313 » Sat, Oct 07, 2023, 10:35 PM UTC

cdogl wrote: post #131

ekianjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Should they instead invest time and public money into solving simple product problems (“how many times was this thing looked at?”) in a way that can be understood by the average desk worker? When that problem is well met by the private sector?

Yes, we should. In fact, I believe every unit of governance of human society (read: nation) should be as independent as possible in every area necessary for its functioning. This means every nation should be completely independent in all of the technology it uses. This is obviously impossible. Not every nation even has the required raw resources, energy input or workforce. So no point in even trying. Luckily, all of this unfathomable monument and mess of concrete and asphalt and silicon which is called global human civilization has not even 50 years left to its total collapse. But oh, wait a minute, let me open the door... This must be your new FPV drone from China, son! Came fast, isn't it? It has only been one week...