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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

#31

Post by Teandw »

azangru wrote: post #22
colesantiago wrote: post #13

I wish all websites were as good as GOV.UK's, they should be taught in schools, colleges and computer science / web courses as the gold standard in web design. No frills or silly scroll jacking animations plus javascript hogging contraptions that we see in almost all websites these days. This gives me hope.

> No frills or silly scroll jacking animations plus javascript hogging contraptions that we see in almost all websites these days. Still the cookie warnings though :-( I've just visited on my phone the forms page linked in the title, and the first thing that greeted me was a full-screen page-blocking dialog with some cookie nonsense. You can't interact with the contents of the page until you decide how you feel about…

Legal requirement in the UK. No way around it.

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

#32

Post by nicoburns »

alt227 wrote: post #15
Sheeny96 wrote: post #5

Honestly, the people behind the scenes of gov uk are doing gods work. See nothing but great stuff coming out of there.

I fully agree. Two of my favourites: Holiday API I plug into every ecommerce site I work on: https://www.api.gov.uk/gds/bank-holidays/#bank-holidays Domain Email Security checker: https://emailsecuritycheck.service.ncsc.gov.uk/check Please share any other favourites!

Yes: a plain JSON endpoint with no authentication! It's the perfect way of exposing this kind of data.

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

#33

Post by mortallywounded »

I was surprised to see a gov.uk page on progressive enhancement and their thoughts on it (https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/using-progressi...). I asked on HN yesterday if PE was dead and everyone seems to think it's dead, and yet gov.uk gets lots of love.

Maybe it's not dead :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37779408

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

#34

Post by nonrandomstring »

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 My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains.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 interoperable standards, simple authentication, and in will come a vipers nest of javascript calling home to monstrous tracking infrastructure, AWS containers, Cloudflare MITM, hooked into some hideous TPM module and mandatory smartphone camera garbage that scans my iris....

Somehow there is a stronghold of common sense and decency standing its ground within our government. I almost wish I could pay a little extra tax to fund them.

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

#35

Post by xcdzvyn »

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.

Australia's somewhat similar too. I wouldn't call our government services optimal nor "simple", but it's clear they're all operating on the same design principles. At the very least it inspires confidence that they're operating on roughly the same guidelines at federal and state levels.

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

#36

Post by dgb23 »

Teandw wrote: post #31
azangru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No frills or silly scroll jacking animations plus javascript hogging contraptions that we see in almost all websites these days. Still the cookie warnings though :-( I've just visited on my phone the forms page linked in the title, and the first thing that greeted me was a full-screen page-blocking dialog with some cookie nonsense. You can't interact with the contents of the page until you decide how you feel about…

Legal requirement in the UK. No way around it.

Even if you don't actually track users?

> We use Google Analytics to measure how you use the website so we can improve it based on user needs. Google Analytics sets cookies that store anonymised information about how you got to the site, the blog pages you visit, how long you spend on each page and what you click on while you're visiting the site.

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

#37

Post by bux93 »

Teandw wrote: post #31
azangru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No frills or silly scroll jacking animations plus javascript hogging contraptions that we see in almost all websites these days. Still the cookie warnings though :-( I've just visited on my phone the forms page linked in the title, and the first thing that greeted me was a full-screen page-blocking dialog with some cookie nonsense. You can't interact with the contents of the page until you decide how you feel about…

Legal requirement in the UK. No way around it.

The pop-up allows you to switch off certain functionality (statistics cookies). If that functionality wasn't there in the first place, the pop-up would not be needed.

Don't shoot the messenger.

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

#38

Post by blitzar »

Sheeny96 wrote: post #5

Honestly, the people behind the scenes of gov uk are doing gods work. See nothing but great stuff coming out of there.

> the people behind the scenes of gov uk

Those would be the people commonly refered to as incompetent traitorous woke lefty cultural marxists refusing to do the will of the people by the fair and balanced media.

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

#39

Post by sofixa »

ZeKK14 wrote: post #4
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.

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.

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

#40

Post by tescocles »

IshKebab wrote: post #28
Sheeny96 wrote: post #5

Honestly, the people behind the scenes of gov uk are doing gods work. See nothing but great stuff coming out of there.

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 definitely get that slightly disconcerted feeling that something is going to go wrong while you're filling out this important, official form? Which I don't get at all in the new framework.

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