A lot of people skip reading gov.uk because "I'm not from the UK what do I care?!" but I believe it is one of the best consumer web page development & design document bundles around. Even if you're based out of the US or elsewhere.
There's too many good pages to link but to get started:
The US also has some good sites (Healthcare.gov's design pages[0], federal government's digital team[1]) the main reason I like the gov.uk stuff a little better is because it deals with more than simple design, it gets into philosophy, deployment, and testing.
Agreed, GOV.UK is so underrated. Their service review teams (who give approval) are relentless about user research, accessibility and ultimate effectiveness of the service. They won't allow a service to pass an assessment until it meets these on a very high standard, no matter how 'urgent' or important the project is.
Their commitment to accessibility is also laudable, unlike other commercial organisations who aren't incentivised to service that minority.
Many people complain that GOV.UK "looks boring" but it's brilliantly effective.
Former GDSer here[0] - this was one of the things that really grabbed me was the focus on design for users -- and this included release cycle as you say!
In addition, we were encouraged to throw away PoCs (that had passed the first service assessment) and start anew to make sure we ended up with a great service at the end of it. This meant that inside a pretty large organisation, testing and validating new services was relatively easy as you could cut corners on the PoC and have an institutional understanding that you'd probably throw it away entirely and start again with something more solid.
One of the mantras that was oft repeated was that 'people do not have a choice to use our service' -- because it was a service that only the govt could provide for whatever reason. The government service manual is amazing, alongside things like the service design rules (more aimed at UI/UX designers).
In addition, the entire team for a service or section thereof would participate in nearly everything. User research (actually watching users use the site) - everyone was there, from user researchers to product managers to developers and designers.
It's a shame more of it wasn't adopted by other govt dept (there are notable exceptions who have done a very good job)
You're not kidding there. Every single time I go to do PAYE I get the same survey questions, even though (when I can be bothered) I tell them they could improve the site by .. not showing me the same survey every time.
People probably don't mention it because it's so good it's invisible. In my experiance people in the 'real world' only mention (read: bitch about) services they struggle with.
I have never heard any complaints in real life, only praise. Gov.uk is brilliant for the same reason facebook beat myspace; it's clean and predictable design which focuses on functionality.
Is gov.uk actually better than places like Estonia or Sweden? Or is it just that info about it is in English, so HN talks about it more? (Accessible information is important, so I don't want to down play the importance of it.)
Definitely better than in Sweden, where there is no central site similar to gov.uk to begin with. Many individual government agencies have pretty good sites though, and most are actually available at least partly in English. https://www.skatteverket.se/ (tax agency) and https://polisen.se/ (police) are two examples.
I don't want to post someones name without their permission but the information is readily available online, one of the people responsible for the improvements to the government digital service previously worked at Vitsœ; and the government design principles you've linked to above are not too dissimilar to Dieter Ram's design principles[0].
I find many government web sites to be too link-heavy. What I mean is that on any particular page, they distract you with too many links to related information in other parts of the site, but such related information should probably have been made part of the current page.
As a result, I find myself opening a large number of tabs when getting information about a topic on these sites.
To be fair, a good amount of the information outlined on government websites is actually pretty dense, complex and requires resources from different branches of the government - it's a difficult task and easy to drown the user in a sea of links and tabs.
Which is exactly why this step by step solution described in the blog post is so useful. It guides you through the various tasks involved in achieving your initial goal, which is outlined in a persistent progress sidebar. Well done in my opinion.
I agree, I think it's the gold standard when it comes to accessible, performant, lightweight and functional design systems. It quickly provides information and solves real everyday problems for a wide range of people from all walks of life.
Meanwhile I have to visit authorities, bring a printed photo, wait and waste time to have my ID renewed in germany. I envy countries liek Estonia or the UK, which offer digital solutions to these common issues.
There's too many good pages to link but to get started:
https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/start-pages/
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles
https://design-system.service.gov.uk/
The US also has some good sites (Healthcare.gov's design pages[0], federal government's digital team[1]) the main reason I like the gov.uk stuff a little better is because it deals with more than simple design, it gets into philosophy, deployment, and testing.
[0] https://styleguide.healthcare.gov/design/
[1] https://designsystem.digital.gov/