On: Building a better gov.uk, step by step

[xuan]

Disclaimer I used to work for the Ministry of Justice (UK) as a software developer.

There are two aspects I feel worth mentioning:

1. GOV.UK is not one single unit but rather quite distributed. these styles and standards are created by a central organisation called Government Digital Service, and all the the government departments follow and feedback. There is a design community and one of the ways of collaboration is to use a Wiki https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/GOV.UK-Design-Patterns-Wiki-hk...

2. UK government is a big open source software contributor. Software projects by default are open source on github. It felt really good getting paid for writing open source code when I worked there :) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/be-open-and-use-open-source

[m0nty → xuan]

This is a complete 180 from about 18 years ago, when I contacted someone re. the Jobcentre website requiring Internet Explorer:

"I only have a Linux system, how can I get access?"

"We only support Microsoft Explorer."

"So if I use Linux I can't find a job?"

"We only support Microsoft Explorer."

That kind of blinkered approach went on for far too long, so it's a real pleasure to use the various websites on gov.uk at the moment. Even traditionally unpleasant things like filing a VAT return are relatively low friction, and taxing a car is absurdly easy.

Now, how can we get the same sort of thing to happen across Whitehall and Westminster more generally? ;)