In January we announced the appointment of Chris Chant as Interim Executive Director for Digital Government. This appointment followed the publication of Martha Lane Fox's report to Government, “Directgov 2010 and Beyond", which made various recommendations to drive up the quality of the Government’s online presence and services.
A specific recommendation of the report was for a Single Government domain so Chris Chant has commissioned a project to test its feasibility. Chris has asked Tom Loosemore, formerly of the BBC’s web operation, to pull together the project. He will be working alongside Jimmy Leach, currently head of digital at the FCO, who will act as the editorial lead. Tom is quickly creating a small team of skilled people from inside and outside government to create a prototype, a proof of concept, to see how a single domain might look and operate. This would take the website rationalization which had already begun to its logical conclusion.
Their brief is twofold: to show how it is possible to deliver, quickly, a working model of a new and fundamentally user-focused approach to government digital and to do so using an agile, multi-disciplinary approach, radically altering the nature of the citizen’s user experience and the work processes needed behind the scenes. So far, based on an exhaustive analysis of user behaviour data, a list of the most prevalent user needs from Government websites has been developed from search term data. Tom has challenged his team to develop an ‘alpha’ version of the domain to meet these user needs better (whether via a piece of content, a decision tree or a transaction) than the current Government web estate does.
It’s an exciting project and Tom and the team will be making public their progress as they go. We will report when the first iterations are public. Chris has made clear his commitment to engaging with the public to get feedback on the site as it develops as this will be essential to its success.
28 comments
Comment by Towards a simpler, smaller, nimbler, cheaper, better gov.uk | GDS blog posted on
[...] Announced in late March, the alpha.gov.uk project is a response to some – but not all – of the challenges laid down in Martha’s report. It has two overarching objectives: [...]
Comment by A simpler and better digital presence | Stephen Hale posted on
[...] will be implemented in full. Before we know it we’ll have a Government Digital Service and a single domain for government. We need to prepare ourselves for changes that we know are around the [...]
Comment by Nicklaus Misiti posted on
Think you can combine all govt. tasks into one mega back-end ? Well good luck with that. I hope you have some very good technical folk in amongst your web designers. And a decade or two.
Comment by TJ posted on
When it talks of a Single Government Domain are they talking of moving all local Government content on to it too, such as County Councils, District Councils etc. or is it for National Government purposes only.
It is a little confusing at the moment when you have everything from main Goverment sites like directgov to local government parish council website all using .gov.uk
Comment by Mark posted on
I'm forced to agree with Robert Whittaker. The requirements of different departments not to mention the various users within those departments would tend to make this an enormous technical challenge.
While having everything in one location may seem like a good idea in theory. However it would be unwise to allow a situation in which a single hacker could hypotheticaly disrupt the online services of the entire government. Having different domains gives a degree of redundancy that is well worth the extra expense.
Comment by Towards a simpler, smaller, nimbler, cheaper, better gov.uk | Alpha.gov.uk – team blog posted on
[...] Announced in late March, the alpha.gov.uk project is a response to some – but not all – of the challenges laid down in Martha’s report. It has two overarching objectives: [...]
Comment by Matt posted on
I basically agree with Russell above.
It does sound like a new directgov. I can't see how it's much different. The bit that amused me was that it's a 'proof of concept'.
Sure - it's possible, in theory, to have a single site. You can do anything in your imagination if it's good enough.
It it do-able in practice ?
The thing is... anything truly _useful_ on the internet (and there are still precious few examples under .gov.uk) means you can actually _do_ something on line. Instead of filing in a form, getting on the phone, going to an office.
Filling in a tax return, for instance. The web content side of that is a tiny fraction of what is required. The tip of a very large iceberg.
Think you can combine all govt. tasks into one mega back-end ? Well good luck with that. I hope you have some very good technical folk in amongst your web designers. And a decade or two.
Not trying to do that - want to provide content only and farm out to specialist sites ? Then it's directgov. Maybe a better directgov, maybe not. But nothing more.
Comment by Russell posted on
Government departments have never 'got' Directgov (for example) and still operate as if it doesn't exist and STILL, years later publish public facing content etc.... what makes you think this is going to work? Directgov could still be a great site if everyone played ball - with the boring policy stuff on department websites, business stuff on BusinessLink etc - what is wrong with this model?
'people don't want content - they want tools and search' - um...wikipedia anyone? And to use Directgov as an example - it has an excellent search engine.
The problem is Google is clogged up with old department site content that should have been removed YEARS ago.
Comment by Phil Jones posted on
It IS broke and you SHOULD fix it. I work in public libraries and until very recently had daily contact with 100s of members of the Public a day. Rarely did they know even about directgov let alone all the other useful government websites. It all needs aggregating under directgov if the intention is really to empower the public to find government information and services.
Comment by The single government domain « Usability, design and the web posted on
[...] been a flutter of speculation recently over the Cabinet Office’s announcement that they plan to move all digital services (in England, anyway) to a single domain. At first this [...]
Comment by MichaelG posted on
Just an idea:
Instead of trying to put existing websites into a single domain, why not create a entry site into everything out there. You could call this "start.gov.uk" or "your.gov.uk"
My prototype example (http://projects.creotec.com/dev/gov-it/) shows my idea of creating of a search engine for citizens - users can personalise their own gov portal. Also based on their search trends and store profile, the system could help them build suggested portal.
This approach I believe those not have to cost that much and would need very little in terms of maintenance. Plus, government departments/organisations can still have the freedom to create and manage their own websites.
Comment by Max Holloway posted on
I didn't realise Jimmy Leach was working on this. Surely he should be playing the drums for me?!
How will you combine current domains without loosing relevancy and rankings?
Or
If it isn't broken, why fix it?
Comment by Steven Hickey posted on
Is such a talented team not essentially wasted? There are so many private sector oganisations where we might see some fruits of their labour if they were used there. One suspects this one will just fizzle out...
Comment by Jon posted on
it is a talented team but I have to agree with Roberts view that one size fits all apprach is definitely a mistake.
Comment by Alan Peterson posted on
I understood the whole concept was to reduce costs, yet this looks as though it is going to cost a fortune. How many years would it take for this project to pay for itself, keeping in mind that technology will have changed so much by the time that date arrives it will probably blow the budget anyway!
It stinck of the NHS style of reform, which is also looking debatable before it has even started.
Comment by Crossover appeal… why we need to link GDS, GCC and ICT « BASIC CRAFT posted on
[...] First came the Government Digital Service (GDS) which gave ‘Codename Martha‘ formal status, an official title, a boss, a timeline, and put money where before there were only words. Government will have its single domain and from this point onwards will be looking to deliver of all its services and communications through a digital lens. To prove as much, a crack (or SWAT for MLF Review afficiandos) team was introduced headed up by Tom Loosemore and a man close to my appraisal, Jimmy Leach, who are soon to unveil a proof-of-concept for the single domain, going by the nom de guerre, AlphaGov. [...]
Comment by Introducing Alphagov | nicepaul.com posted on
[...] If you’d like to learn more, The Guardian and The Telegraph both have pieces about the Alphagov project, and the Cabinet office have blogged about it. [...]
Comment by Robert Whittaker posted on
I presume this means merging everything to a single mega-site (eg putting everything under a much-expanded http://www.direct.gov.uk) run by a single CMS backend.
This doesn't seem to me to be a very sensible thing to do at all. Different departments have their own identities and have their own unique requirements. A "one size fits all" approach isn't going to be able to satisfy these very well.
Comment by Stephen Cronin posted on
@Robert,
The whole point is that the site should be created around the needs of the users, not the requirements of the departments.
Comment by Former BBC staffer appointed to pilot a single government web domain | Ready-Sourcing.com - World Industrial Sourcing News covering national and international Trading affairs. posted on
[...] a blog post on the Cabinet Office web site, the brief includes a requirement to deliver “a working model of a new and [...]
Comment by Stewart Robinson posted on
We already have the gov.uk top level domain. Surely we should just move things under that if they don't exist
Comment by Web Design London posted on
I agree with Stewart, surely we should use gov.uk to make things simpler..
Comment by Taras posted on
Could you elaborate on "a Single Government domain", please? Do you mean a single government website? As there's already a single government domain, namely gov.uk. Confused. Ta.
Comment by And so we’re revealed… AlphaGov « a work on process posted on
[...] is part of the reason that was the last time I got round to writing weeknotes. But today a post on the Cabinet Office digital engagement blog took the wrappers off and we can begin to talk about what we’re up [...]
Comment by The Unveiling of #Alphagov « Digital by Default posted on
[...] Reader and scanning my Twitter feed and so was looking in the right direction when news of the ‘Alpha Gov’ project led by Tom Loosemore broke. Simon at Puffbox has already (and already I mean seconds after the [...]
Comment by clare weiner posted on
nice clean page design 🙂 looking good
Comment by links for 2011-03-29 « Andy Tedd @ CEMP posted on
[...] Towards a Single Government Domain « Digital Engagement blog In January we announced the appointment of Chris Chant as Interim Executive Director for Digital Government. This appointment followed the publication of Martha Lane Fox’s report to Government, “Directgov 2010 and Beyond“, which made various recommendations to drive up the quality of the Government’s online presence and services. [...]
Comment by James Darling posted on
A very talented team. I'm optimistic.