Bringing sanity to UK government IT:
how GDS built GOV.UK
Big Tech Day 6, June 2013
@benilov
Who am I?
UK Cabinet Office
Agenda
UK government IT, GDS & GOV.UK
GOV.UK and feedback
Agenda
UK government IT, GDS & GOV.UK
GOV.UK and feedback
Bringing sanity to UK government IT:
how GDS built GOV.UK
UK government IT insanity
... is too big a topic
UK government IT insanity
today: only publishing
Martha Lane Fox, UK Digital Champion
Bringing more people online
Making online services more efficient
Moving to digital by default could save the government £1.7bn to £1.8bn every year
Source: Cabinet Office Digital Efficiency Report, November 2012
For some government services, the average cost of a digital transaction is
20x lower than the cost of a telephone transaction
30x lower than the cost of postal transaction
50x lower than a face-to-face transaction
Source: Cabinet Office Digital Efficiency Report, November 2012
Government publishing in 2010
750 top level domains
Government publishing in 2010
Directgov, Business Link 6 years old
Government publishing in 2010
Directgov
Government publishing in 2010
Business Link
Government publishing in 2010
no unified website identities
Government publishing in 2010
Government publishing in 2010
Government publishing in 2010
Government publishing in 2010
users have to understand the structure of government to find information and services
Directgov usability problems
"everything is in one place, but it is a confusing place."
Source: Consumer Focus, Does Directgov Deliver?
Directgov usability problems
"...the information is not built around priorities in public services but around what the site is able to easily provide"
Source: Consumer Focus, Does Directgov Deliver?
Directgov usability problems
"At present, there are over a 100 sections and headings that link from the home page."
Source: Consumer Focus, Does Directgov Deliver?
Directgov usability problems
"Much content duplicates the work of existing trusted sources"
Source: Consumer Focus, Does Directgov Deliver?
Directgov usability problems
"Online surveys of visitors to Directgov shows 35% of people are unable to find everything they want"
Source: Consumer Focus, Does Directgov Deliver?
Making online services more efficient
Making online services more efficient
1. Fix transactional services
2. Fix publishing
3. Go wholesale, not just retail
4. New CEO Digital
Source: Tom Loosemore, GDS Changing by Doing, http://slidesha.re/nzYV4T
Making online services more efficient
2. Fix publishing (single domain, consistent UX, shared platform)
4. New CEO Digital (with powers & means to deliver above)
Source: Tom Loosemore, GDS Changing by Doing, http://slidesha.re/nzYV4T
Bringing sanity to UK government IT:
how GDS built GOV.UK
What is GDS?
Government
Digital
Service
What is GDS?
Bringing sanity to UK government IT:
how GDS built GOV.UK
https://www.gov.uk
What is GOV.UK?
Single government domain
What is GOV.UK?
Single entry point to central government
What is GOV.UK?
Single brand
GOV.UK replaced Directgov and Business Link on October 17, 2012
1800 user needs identified
700+ user needs redesigned and rewritten
188 million visits and 546 million pageviews in 6 months
GOV.UK: homepage
24 ministerial departments migrated by April 30, 2013
GOV.UK: departments
GOV.UK: departments
GOV.UK: answers
GOV.UK: transactions
GOV.UK: guides
GOV.UK: calculators
GOV.UK: one-off formats
Did GOV.UK succeed?
It gets more traffic
Source: GOV.UK performance dashboard
It's cheaper
Source: Efficiency and Reform 2012/13 summary report
It's award-winning
Source: Mike Bracken and Ben Terrett at the Design Awards by Cabinet Office, on Flickr
Agenda
UK government IT, GDS & GOV.UK
GOV.UK and feedback
iterative development, cross functional teams, TDD, continuous integration, code reviews, retrospectives, automated testing, etc etc
BORING!
7 unusual types of feedback
1. release early
The Alpha
a publicly released prototype
The Alpha
12 weeks, £261K
The Alpha
Built for learning - a Minimum Viable Product
The Alpha
The Beta
The Launch
Source: How the redirection works, Paul Downey, GDS Blog
The Launch
2. product analytics
design with data
Pre-launch
decide whether to migrate or drop content
Pre-launch
identify nuances around specific user needs
Pre-launch
identify how users were finding the content
Pre-launch
identify target browsers and devices
Post-launch
define success metrics
3. performance dashboards
GOV.UK Performance Dashboard
Inside Government Performance Dashboard
GOV.UK Content Explorer
GDS Transactions Explorer
4. user research
analytics says what, user research explains why
lab testing
Iterating on the homepage
Iterating on the homepage
Iterating on the homepage
Iterating on the homepage
5. accessibility testing
usable and useful for disadvantaged users
not just box-ticking
internal testing
Colour contrast checker
Colour blindness simulator
Blurred vision simulator
external user testing
6. devops
developers and operations building live services together
developers have the keys to production
operations aren't responsible for fixing broken apps
it's great!
1000 code changes in the first 8 months
(7 updates per working day)
7. direct user feedback
GOV.UK has a user helpdesk
Reporting problems
Even on 404 pages
user feedback as monitoring
investigating trends
Thank you.
Questions?
Follow me on Twitter:
@benilov
Agenda
What is GDS?
What is GOV.UK?
GOV.UK and feedback
GOV.UK and open source
My open source contributions
GDS is "all in" with open source
perhaps not strictly "open source"
coding in the open
1. fairness towards the taxpayer
2. fairness towards the OSS community
3. transparency
4. reuse
5. marketing
6. as a portfolio
Bringing sanity to government IT
By Jake Benilov
