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Dave Guarino needs to read Seeing Like a State, Seeing Like a Bank, and Seeing Like a Data Structure. And then write his own Seeing Like a Government Website. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-... https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/seeing-like-a-bank/ https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/seeing-data-structu...
Specifically the “design” section for our current context.
Dave Guarino needs to read Seeing Like a State, Seeing Like a Bank, and Seeing Like a Data Structure. And then write his own Seeing Like a Government Website. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-... https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/seeing-like-a-bank/ https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/seeing-data-structu...
The UK government have one: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual Specifically the “design” section for our current context.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
gov.uk recommends having a single question per page - principally to make the form easier for users, but it also means you can handle progress saving and conditional sections and so on server-side. https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design/form-structure
gov.uk is pretty good, and their forms are quite good. But there are definitely still places where this design is worse than one using JavaScript. For example when paying for tax free childcare you have to enter a date for when you want the payment to go out. Not only is the date picker just three edit boxes (no "tomorrow" button for example), but it isn't validated at all so if you put in today's date (quite reasona…
There's so much research that shows the opposite.
You might prefer that but government websites need to work for everyone, and showing validation messages automatically confuses less technically able people, and it's really hard to make it fully accessible.
At which point do you announce the mistake to a screen reader? Where do you shift focus? etc.
It was designed this way for a specific reason. Services that feel the need to extend or change it do have the option to though.
Here are just some of the official French websites: service-public.fr impots.gouv.fr gouvernement.fr ameli.fr vie-publique.fr info.gouv.fr santepubliquefrance.fr
How to not make great government websites: use random domain names instead of a single dedicated tld, different contractors and design for each, make sure there's enough overlap in functionality in-between each of them, and then regularly remind everyone that it's very easy to scam you with fishing attacks. Here are just some of the official French websites: service-public.fr impots.gouv.fr gouvernement.fr ameli.fr v…
> gouvernement.fr info.gouv.fr
These are the same website. gouvernement.fr is a legacy URL that redirects to info.gouv.fr. Why did you include both?
> ameli.fr
As I'm sure you know, in France, social security is not administered by the government directly but by the social partners. They're in charge of managing ameli.fr, not the government. Go there, you won't find any logo from any ministry. Why did you include it? With this and the previous example, I cannot shake the feeling that you're on a mission to denigrate with little regard to the facts.
> vie-publique.fr santepubliquefrance.fr
These websites are basically blogs about respectively the institutions of the republic and about public health.
> service-public.fr
General informational website. For most sensitive procedures, you're redirected to a .gouv.fr website. Yes, it could have had a .gouv.fr URL, that's true.
> impots.gouv.fr
Yep, that's the tax website. You can notice it's official thanks to gouv.fr, like all website where you do actual online procedures.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
gov.uk is pretty good, and their forms are quite good. But there are definitely still places where this design is worse than one using JavaScript. For example when paying for tax free childcare you have to enter a date for when you want the payment to go out. Not only is the date picker just three edit boxes (no "tomorrow" button for example), but it isn't validated at all so if you put in today's date (quite reasona…
> It would be much better if a tiny bit of JavaScript told you as soon as you put the date in, and if it had a "tomorrow" button, which would also require some JavaScript. There's so much research that shows the opposite. You might prefer that but government websites need to work for everyone, and showing validation messages automatically confuses less technically able people, and it's really hard to make it fully ac…
Care to link it? It should be easy to do, if there's so much of it.
How to not make great government websites: use random domain names instead of a single dedicated tld, different contractors and design for each, make sure there's enough overlap in functionality in-between each of them, and then regularly remind everyone that it's very easy to scam you with fishing attacks. Here are just some of the official French websites: service-public.fr impots.gouv.fr gouvernement.fr ameli.fr v…
That's a very unfair take. The examples you list are of a completely different nature. > gouvernement.fr info.gouv.fr These are the same website. gouvernement.fr is a legacy URL that redirects to info.gouv.fr. Why did you include both? > ameli.fr As I'm sure you know, in France, social security is not administered by the government directly but by the social partners. They're in charge of managing ameli.fr, not the g…
How to not make great government websites: use random domain names instead of a single dedicated tld, different contractors and design for each, make sure there's enough overlap in functionality in-between each of them, and then regularly remind everyone that it's very easy to scam you with fishing attacks. Here are just some of the official French websites: service-public.fr impots.gouv.fr gouvernement.fr ameli.fr v…