Feb 28
Today we have released part 2 of the GOV.UK beta – INSIDE GOVERNMENT. You can see our other post today for more on what this is all about and why it matters. But here, we’re going to take a quick canter through some of the features and our thinking behind them.
Read more about a few highlights of INSIDE GOVERNMENT
Today we unveil the next bit of the GOV.UK beta – INSIDE GOVERNMENT.
This is the place where, in future, people who are personally or professionally interested in the business of government will be able to research how government works and see what it is doing.
Read more about INSIDE GOVERNMENT
Hello, I’m Paul, also known as @psd and I’ve just joined GDS as a Technical Architect. First impressions are important but soon forgotten, so here are some of mine from the first day of working with the team.
Read more about @psd joining GDS
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, for the jobs we are now advertising for.
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
