Gov.uk website is amazing

[Togomalone]

I’ve had to use the UK government website a lot recently for various functions and every time it’s been super easy and helpful in guiding me through legislation, applications, eligibility etc. I was dreading doing it all, but it was actually painless due to this website.

Watching the post office drama made me think about all the awful IT systems I’ve had to use and Gov.uk stood out as the best.

This government is crap, but credit where it’s due to the civil service who built this amazing website.

I think we’re really lucky in the U.K. to have a well functioning and customer friendly online service. I wish other online services I need to use were as good as this one.

It's so refreshing to go to a website and think "wow, they actually got real people to test this before rolling it out".

C

Oops, that sent before I expected it to!

I agree Gov.uk is easy to use. It's a relief to have something that still just works like you need it to.

Have you noticed that a lot of commercial stuff is getting harder to use, and their non-digital alternatives are getting scaled back or even wiped out? I've noticed that stock in real shops is increasingly poor (actually pushing you to shop online), but now you can't return in-store and have to pay for returns postage. Or there are now loads of self-checkouts, but fewer and fewer real checkouts open (or even there!). Even Amazon sent me an email yesterday telling me my Prime Video will now have ads in it, and if I don't want them I'm have to increase my payments!

I have to use the home office part of the website for my job sometimes. For a government website there are lots of errors I'll say that. One of the documents I need to send to clients I can't through our emails as one of the embassy links is incorrect and is infact a scam website.... Excellent due diligence

I used to work in IT and know good usability when I see it - gov.uk is excellent. As pp have said, there was a lot of thought put into it - I believe they have their development philosophy online somewhere for any geeks among us who are interested in their working culture. A real success.

Yep I use the childcare tax free pages and think it works well, it’s annoying you have to reconfirm every 3 months but it is pretty easy and quick to do.

Interesting to read responses about the human centred design and philosophy- seems pretty obvious but like a PP said, so many companies these days have tortuous online and telephone systems where you are routed through a ridiculous number of options to get to what you need. Vodafone broadband was the worst - I unsubscribed in the end.

I am very grateful I haven’t had to traipse around govt offices or the post office to do all my admin this new year. We renewed our passports recently and I couldn’t believe how easy it was compared to 10 years ago.

I hope you reported it

I agree, the tax free childcare bit of Gov.uk is noticeably worse and harder to use than all the other parts.

I understand it was outsourced to Capita, whereas the bits for paying tax, renewing your car tax, etc were built in house.

The fundamental issue with most web design is designers who think "what do we want to know" instead of "what does the user want to tell us".

Every year it’s been getting better and easier to navigate too.
Love it.

Gov.uk is a great website super easy to use.

Had to use it a lot recently as I've moved house and needed to update log book and driving license.

Log book was so easy... driving license once you left the gov.uk part and went to the specific website which is another company it was horrid. Small front and things

That's exactly what the driving license website looked like 😂

Good to hear - doing mine Thursday

I work in this specific area for the NHS. We follow the government design framework.

everything has to be in a language an 8 year old would understand.

thats not to say it’s dumbed down, it just makes it a lot easier to understand.

It’s here, if anyone is interested.

https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-standard

Sometimes .gov is good, Sometimes .gov sends you round in circles.

i just listened to the podcast and it seems the project was rushed a bit. One reason for this was that fujitsu would be paid upon completion, and then paid to operate it. So big incentive to finish and start making money.

(But why would they ruin their reputation is my question? I will absolutely think twice before buying any of their products)

passport service is amazing. a few minutes to apply, and really user friendly, and one week till i actually got a new one in the post!

@Jewishbookwork yep I had to order a few passports and they all arrived much faster than expected. Hassle free service, although it wasn’t cheap to buy them all at once!

@Jewishbookwork I heard today that Fujitsu was behind the 13 billion pound failed NHS national IT system. The NHS abandoned this IT system in 2008 because it wasn’t fit for purpose, so I’m not sure why the Post Office had such faith in Horizon (also developed by Fujitsu).

It seems to me that we have 2 high profile IT successes (gov.uk, NHS website and app) which were developed and managed in house (albeit with contractors supporting) and 2 high profile failures that were contracted out.

Theres a lesson here we should remember. I expect the in house option is expensive but much better value for money if it is efficient and reduces friction for staff and the public.

Theres a book called "the blunders of our government", which looks at big government failures over the past 60 years and it discusses exactly this issue in relation to some of the failures. Its a much better read than it sounds and i really recommend it!

@AnotherNC22 thanks for the heads up - that sounds really interesting. I imagine these sorts of contracts induce all sorts of unintended negative consequences due to the profit motives. Civil service is often criticised as bureaucratic and slow but the absence of a profit motive will remove these pitfalls.

Theres definitely a place for the private sector in delivering public services but they must be well managed and controlled to minimise the risks.

How does the civil service attract all the software engineers and other technical staff needed, are their salaries competitive?

Some of the services are really good like the tax ones and online benefits claims.

However I could find you a shocker that shows it's not all marvellous...

There are very strict rules around them and it's quite hard to get the pages updated, individual orgs don't own their own pages generally. Which means it can't be changed by randoms but also makes it virtually impossible sometimes to correct things.

OH no, that’s awful.
Thank you for reminding me to always double check.
We were on holiday in Henley on Thames for a week and I checked it before we set off, and on the days we had planned visits to Kew Gardens and the Historic Dockyards.