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by one-more-minute 1615 days ago
In general the gov.uk website is stellar. Lots of good info, and plenty of thought has gone into making everything clear, accessible and pleasing to the eye. Things generally work in a way that they really don't on most public org websites. The team behind it blog a fair bit about how they've made these things happen.

https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk

The only downside is that they often send you to sites run by other, significantly less competent bodies (looking at you, student loans company).

2 comments

They had an early win getting a effective and consistent UI accross government sites, but digitising the underlying processes is a work in progress. Once you click that beautiful and accessible green submit button, it's not impossible a printer in Swansea whirs to life to print your answers out into the original paper form.
http://ehmipeach.defra.gov.uk/

>Using the right browser - only use Microsoft Edge PEACH is compatible with Microsoft Edge, but only when Internet Explorer mode is enabled. For guidance on setting up Internet Explorer mode in Edge, follow this link to instructions on the Microsoft Support Page.

Yeah, there's still some way to go.

> it's not impossible a printer in Swansea whirs to life to print your answers out into the original paper form

Speaking of which: my mum went through the form to renew her Oyster card the other day, and, having finally completed it, it generated a PDF form and told her to print it out and take it to the Post Office.

So yeah, there are definitely some Jira tickets still on the left.

While I almost entirely agree with you, having had to report positive LFT Covid tests and do the subsequent “test and trace” form this week I feel that while the UI and UX is nice the flow of those forms are really quite pore. There are repetitive/redundant questions plus inconsistent and out of date advise. It’s probably more an effect of the difficult moving target of changing rules and advice, but for what is an important government process everyone is coming into contact with I though it would be better. Maybe wishful thinking though.