Earlier this week the the final ministerial department joined GOV.UK. This isn't the end of the GOV.UK story; in fact it's barely the end of the beginning. But today is still a big moment, the result of commitment and collaboration …
We’ve talked about our initial analysis, our design rules and our technology. This post is about how we tried to get from those starting points to that technology — to the built thing — which is what you can see …
This is a short post about a huge topic: what government should do to consult, engage and involve people more openly in the work it does, online. Consultation is a big part of government. Doing it better online is a …
As mentioned in other blogs, one of the first and primary tasks for the Alphagov project was to build a site that provided the information and services users need. So where were we going for the evidence? Within the timescale …
Just as there are trends in technology, there are fashions in project management and some feel that agile is poorly suited to government and is just a fad. One of the principle objectives for this project was to demonstrate that …
It is always easier to sketch out a page design rather than build straight out or do a detailed mockup - it is lower cost and gives everyone a common thing to frame discussions around. Here are a few of …
The blank slate the Alpha.gov.uk team was handed was a huge privilege, but threw up some unusual technical challenges. Normally when embarking on building web apps you'd expect to have some sense of the corpus of content or the core …
Alpha.gov.uk is a demonstration of what a single central Government site could be. It's not Business Link, it's not Directgov, it's not any specific department or Government agency – but at the same time it represents all of those, and …
We knew very early on that Alpha.gov.uk was going to work best if it had a sense of where in the country (or world) its visitors are coming from. Knowing that means it can provide you with information on where …
It's all too easy to get caught up in the excitement of launching a new site full of interesting new stuff. If you're not careful, you can miss the bigger picture. You can get lost in the wondrous geekiness of …
How accessible is your website?
Public sector organisations have a legal duty to make websites accessible. Find out how your organisation is impacted at GOV.UK/accessibility-regulations
GOV.UK service and product owners need to upload an accessibility page and publishers need to upload an accessible documents policy.