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Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

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Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#61

Post by comex »

z1mm32m4n wrote: post #56
scoot wrote: post #43

"is it possible to create a shared set of tools to provide consistent, beautiful, and easy-to-use government websites?" Yup: http://gov.uk They even copied the colour scheme: https://playbook.cio.gov/designstandards/visual-style/#color...

Not gonna lie, I confused this site for one of those sites you see on parked domains. I can see a resemblance with respect to the color scheme, but I think the entire design aesthetic is completely different.

I had the same impression (on an iPhone). I'm not really sure what contributed to my unconscious snap judgement, but I think it has to do with the layout of the search box and list of links, along with the lack of images (other than a little icon in the corner) and the four copies of the domain name (in all caps) on the page.

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#62

Post by ampersandy »

This post doesn't address the most important thing: when can we actually expect all of the government's websites to start using these common patterns?

Creating a library/set of guidelines that you expect other developers to use is great and all, but not impactful in and of itself. Right now it looks like the library's authors are more focused on making their library useful than used, which is a thousand times more important.

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#63

Post by lockes5hadow »

mattchue wrote: post #33

Doesn't this make it incredibly easy for phishing websites to be created? I suppose such websites would exist anyway, but this would certainly diminish a user's ability to differentiate between a legitimate .gov or another page with malicious intent at a glance.

Not any easier than it already is. There are tools like Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) that make it dead simple to launch all sorts of phishing attacks.

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#64

Post by huac »

hiharryhere wrote: post #60

There's a number of comments here about this making phishing easier. The bigger issue is that the US gov doesn't consistently use .gov domain names. http://www.ustraveldocs.com/ This is the official US gov site for applying for a visa. Given there are so many dodgy immigration agents operating with .com addresses it makes no sense as to why the official site is not just 'visa.gov'.

"© CGI Group Inc" - looks contracted out. Agree that something this important needs to look more official.

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#65

Post by huac »

comex wrote: post #61
z1mm32m4n wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not gonna lie, I confused this site for one of those sites you see on parked domains. I can see a resemblance with respect to the color scheme, but I think the entire design aesthetic is completely different.

I had the same impression (on an iPhone). I'm not really sure what contributed to my unconscious snap judgement, but I think it has to do with the layout of the search box and list of links, along with the lack of images (other than a little icon in the corner) and the four copies of the domain name (in all caps) on the page.

The "popular on gov.uk" links are in that perfect mix of random and search engine keyword that domain parkers love (SEO baby!)

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#66

Post by philliphaydon »

scoot wrote: post #43

"is it possible to create a shared set of tools to provide consistent, beautiful, and easy-to-use government websites?" Yup: http://gov.uk They even copied the colour scheme: https://playbook.cio.gov/designstandards/visual-style/#color...

Gov.UK is a terrible website.

https://medium.com/@prenticemathew/ux-specialists-are-killin...

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#67

Post by philliphaydon »

benaiah wrote: post #49
tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would have been a great comment without the word "bullshit", which made the whole thing read needlessly venomous.

Re-reading this a couple hours later, I agree. I responded to needless negativity with more needless negativity. Guess my IRC habits have been leaking into my other hobbies. I'd edit it, but it's been too long since it was posted.

There's no need to apologise for using the word bullshit. It's bullshit that we have to be PC about words we use.

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#68

Post by notahacker »

scoot wrote: post #43

"is it possible to create a shared set of tools to provide consistent, beautiful, and easy-to-use government websites?" Yup: http://gov.uk They even copied the colour scheme: https://playbook.cio.gov/designstandards/visual-style/#color...

Arguably unifying of back-ends are more important than the visual design for consistency and ease of use though.

The introduction to the article shows several different styles of registration or login button used across different US govt departments, but the key point here is that they're all separate user identities requiring separate logins. Making visually identical login flows that actually require different credentials to log into separate services actually makes things worse for periodic users of multiple government sites. What's needed as an even higher priority than changing the buttons is a uniform OpenGovernmentID everywhere it makes sense to do so

Priority number two for ease of use in government websites would probably be fixing link rot, since government websites have a horrible tendency to deep link to other departments just before that department's site gets reorganised or renames (and departments whose sites were replaced by the gov.uk platform unfortunately are no exception)

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#69

Post by freshyill »

mbesto wrote: post #14

Nice, they use SASS/Bourbon/Neat for their styling.[0][1] Huge fan and recommend it to anyone using Ruby for web development. [0] - https://playbook.cio.gov/designstandards/getting-started/ [1] - http://bourbon.io/

I really used to love Bourbon and Neat, but they're unnecessary today. The vendor prefix mixins are mostly obviated by modern tools like Autoprefixer, and Neat itself can be mostly reduced to a Sass mixin.

Re: Introducing U.S. Web Design Standards

#70

Post by RivieraKid »

philliphaydon wrote: post #66
scoot wrote: post #43

"is it possible to create a shared set of tools to provide consistent, beautiful, and easy-to-use government websites?" Yup: http://gov.uk They even copied the colour scheme: https://playbook.cio.gov/designstandards/visual-style/#color...

Gov.UK is a terrible website. https://medium.com/@prenticemathew/ux-specialists-are-killin...

Most people love it. IMHO this is the best government website.
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