We’re opening up access to Gov.uk forms

When I moved to the UK, one of the surprising things was how well the GOV.UK ecosystem worked. My original country uses a mishmash of Java applets, ajax-based websites, and a mixture of mildly broken, outdated web technologies, served from a variety of domains. GOV.UK was a breath of fresh air with its simple, consistent UI, served as static HTML. This is how internet services should look like.

The GOV.UK Design System team [1] is really doing great work. Wish there would be more like this from other governments.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;design-system.service.gov.uk&#x2F;design-system-team&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;design-system.service.gov.uk&#x2F;design-system-team&#x2F;</a><p>Edit: Apparently there are a lot! Really nice to see.

Honestly, the people behind the scenes of gov uk are doing gods work. See nothing but great stuff coming out of there.

Just adding to the chorus here: I moved from the US to the UK and like any immigrant anywhere I had to fill out a lot of forms. Especially during covid, there was seemingly always a new form to fill. The Gov.uk forms are literally the most straightforward and usable internet forms I&#x27;ve ever used. As close to perfect as you can get.

I was surprised to see a gov.uk page on progressive enhancement and their thoughts on it (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;service-manual&#x2F;technology&#x2F;using-progressive-enhancement" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;service-manual&#x2F;technology&#x2F;using-progressi...</a>). I asked on HN yesterday if PE was dead and everyone seems to think it&#x27;s dead, and yet gov.uk gets lots of love.<p>Maybe it&#x27;s not dead :)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37779408">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37779408</a>

If anybody wants to try figure out how to run this...<p>Docker images: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;notpushkin?tab=packages&amp;tab=packages&amp;q=govuk-forms-">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;notpushkin?tab=packages&amp;tab=packages&amp;q=go...</a><p>Simple stub for the signon service (likely needs further modification): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;notpushkin&#x2F;stupidauth&#x2F;container_registry" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;notpushkin&#x2F;stupidauth&#x2F;container_registry</a><p>And the Docker Compose stack: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;notpushkin&#x2F;f174b52efc6285e6be30fb66bb48153f" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;notpushkin&#x2F;f174b52efc6285e6be30fb66b...</a> (works with <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lunni.dev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lunni.dev&#x2F;</a> or Docker Swarm + Traefik)<p>If you do manage to run it please ping me, I&#x27;m also interested in trying it out!<p>—<p>Edit: discusson on GitHub: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;alphagov&#x2F;forms&#x2F;discussions&#x2F;106">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;alphagov&#x2F;forms&#x2F;discussions&#x2F;106</a>

I wish all websites were as good as GOV.UK&#x27;s, they should be taught in schools, colleges and computer science &#x2F; web courses as the gold standard in web design.<p>No frills or silly scroll jacking animations plus javascript hogging contraptions that we see in almost all websites these days.<p>This gives me hope.

One niggle I have is the departments’ over-use of forms (from my perspective) in employing the ‘landing page’ pattern.<p>E.g. if you search ‘DVLA vehicle information’, you will land on this page <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;get-vehicle-information-from-dvla" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;get-vehicle-information-from-dvla</a> and you have to click ‘Start Now’ to get the page you actually wanted. The same is for logging in to HMRC Personal Tax<p>I’d like the actual form I want on the same page

Coming from Japan which is notorious for having the worst digital experience, the UK&#x27;s gov.uk ecosystem is incredible

Really proud of what the gov.uk team are doing. Everything is clean, accessible, and predictable across the many different systems. A massive success I think.

If you want to peek behind the curtain, &quot;Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy Is Delivery&quot; by Andrew Greenway et al [1] is full of advice and background on what it takes to launch and operate something like GDS.<p>Something that fascinated me: how they were planning the departure of GDS leadership years in advance. GDS had to push changes through, which means making enemies, which means eventually being squeezed out. So they just assumed that will happen and adjusted organisational structures, making sure there will be new leaders in place. Just incredible level of professionalism.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.co.uk&#x2F;Digital-Transformation-Scale-Strategy-Perspectives-dp-191301939X&#x2F;dp&#x2F;191301939X&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.co.uk&#x2F;Digital-Transformation-Scale-Strate...</a>

if only this short &quot;manual on how to make maintainable-software&quot; below was a) studied and b) followed ... the software-world would be much-much better place. (and Avoiding the several-years-learning-500-pages-books-by-heart.. without ever understanding why those are what they are)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;service-manual&#x2F;technology" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;service-manual&#x2F;technology</a>

I would like a sharing session from the team behind. Would be awesome hear the thought process, their pain experience etc.

&gt; We know this is not going to cover all routing needs though - in the future, we’d like to look at building branching (two separate sets of questions depending on the answer), and later down the line we might be able to expand our routing so you can add routes to more than one answer, and also routes based on a combination of answers.<p>I&#x27;m very interested how they build a UI for branching. Communicating branching conditions visually and clearly without just handing the user a programming language is a hard problem.

I wonder if they have given any thought to the possibility that if you’ve standardized forms, you could also expose all those services as APIs?

This is good news, but aren&#x27;t well-phrased questions a strong suit of Gov.uk forms? Other government departments might not be familiar with proper guidelines for form creation. Has this issue been approached? (curious, as I&#x27;m not British)

Their forms are excellent, I completed my British citizenship effortlessly, all online.

This looks great :-) However reading the How it works section, it states:<p>&quot;Each form needs an email address to be set for completed forms to be sent to when they’re submitted&quot;<p>So... erm is an email Inbox needed for integration? - how very 1990!<p>In addition to email, for use by developers in other UK GOV departments - surely HTTP PUT of an XML or JSON document to a user nominated URL (with provided auth token) would have been trivial to achieve?

I have to admit, as a Spaniard that moved 7 years ago to the UK, that the government related sites are an absolute pleasure to work with. Taxes, information of any kind etc everything clear and straightforward. I take my hat off.<p>PS: Does anyone know the stack they use?

I had to fill out a companies legal questionnaires and forms. The company had pinched the gov.uk format. It was such a relief to find a company using something familiar and well thought out instead of some fancy survey form or email.

I wish my country invested more into IT, most of the sites are outright broken or even lying to you - saying there are no available appointments online, but if you call up, you can book for next day even.

seems to be mostly open source too <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;alphagov&#x2F;forms&#x2F;wiki">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;alphagov&#x2F;forms&#x2F;wiki</a>

On the surface looks like a great example of inner sourcing.

This is fantastic to see and should hopefully reduce the cost massively for building out, what is effectively forms, for other government services!

Gov.uk is probably the greatest thing our government has achieved for quite a while.<p>That&#x27;s not hyperbole.

This is basically a govt created turbo tax tool but for every govt form ever.. nice.

Germany is far away from something like this

Its a great example of how to use design systems