Feb 22
We’ve had a lot of feedback on our recent call for developers to join us at GDS. The biggest message by far was that the application process wasn’t very user-friendly. We agree, it needs to be improved. So we’re going to try out a simpler application process with less jargon and fewer questions.
Read more about developer roles and a new application process
I spent Saturday at Ravensbourne College in North Greenwich as one of the judges at Interactivism – a hack event organised by Google, FutureGov, Livity and the RSA looking at innovative ways of using the web to help young people get into the job they want, or onto the training or education that will help them get there in the future.
Read more about the interactivism hack weekend
Inherent to the content strategy of the citizen beta of GOV.UK is hiding complexity and building tools before writing content. Much of the detail of government policy is difficult for normal folk to grasp and understand – and the proposition of GOV.UK is that they shouldn’t have to.
Smart answers are a great tool for content designers to present complex information in a quick and simple way. Defining what they are – decision trees? calculators? tools? is immaterial – what they do is provide a reusable technical framework to build a quick and simple answer to a complex question.
An important design rule of GOV.UK is to hide complexity, so if we are being truly user-centric, people should not need to understand the structure of government to be able to access services.
Search data tells us that when people search for government services, they often don’t distinguish between central or local government. Every week, on Directgov for example, tens of thousands of users search for ‘Council Tax’ or ‘Housing Benefit’, both of which are delivered through local councils. Read more about linking local services
“You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté.”
I wanted to start with this quote because I love it. I’ll tell you who it’s by in a moment, but first some background.
Read more about videos & GOV.UK
We took a decision early on in the project that GOV.UK should be forward-looking and exploit modern browsers. Browser technology evolves rapidly, so constant iteration will allow GOV.UK to exploit new technologies as they reach maturity.
Read more about HTML5 & GOV.UK
The Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, and I recently travelled to the West Coast of the US which coincided with the launch of GOV.UK. It was slightly surreal not to be in the UK for such an important moment for GDS but really gratifying to see the interest shown by the US tech media.
Read more about the West Coast
We invited members of the cross Government Heads of Digital Engagement network along to GDS to participate in the release of GOV.UK. Nettie Williams (Ministry of Justice), Helen Lewis (HM Treasury) and Ian Strafford (Dept of Work & Pensions) very kindly took up the offer and have contributed the guest post below on their experience: Read more about digital engagement for the beta release of GOV.UK
We’re already talked about why we chose Amazon Web Services for hosting the beta of GOV.UK, and how we approached some of the decisions that came with it. Cloud hosting gives us the flexibility to rapidly iterate our infrastructure as the product develops and test how it performs, but this brings its own set of challenges.
Read more about pulling the servers strings
I invited David Gigg and Ian Sears from Stephen Allott’s team along to the 3rd Agile Teacamp late last month. Stephen (pictured), in his role as Government Crown Representative for SMEs, is committed to giving emerging suppliers a stronger voice at the top table. He is currently working with SME’s and across Government to ‘level the playing field’ by challenging preconceptions about the value, innovation and flexibility that smaller companies can deliver.
Read more about SMEs & procurement at Agile teacamp
GDS twitter accountsTheme: Linen by The Theme Foundry
