gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old

Which is not a bug, but a feature of the gov.uk website, and it's the best and the most important one. 89 year old you would absolutely appreciate it when you'd need to renew your passport via gov.uk.

> 89 year old you would absolutely appreciate it

Not just 89 year old you. Also, you on a bad day when you were ill/had 5 hours of sleep/were distracted.

Interacting with other governments feels like a minefield designed to catch you out, in comparison.

Funny you say that, I actually just did a company tax return and confirmation statement a couple of days in the midst of bad COVID (2 hours sleep per night) and I was still annoyed about the multi-step process:

1) gov.uk, search for 'file confirmation statement'

2) Despite there being a sole autocomplete result and clicking on it, taken to the search results page

3) Click the first result. Turns out it's the guidance page

4) Go back, click the second result. We're getting warmer

5) Click "Start Now"

6) Get redirected to the 'Sign in to WebFiling' landing page. You can't actually sign on on this page.

7) Click 'Continue'

8) Another landing/explainer page! ("We're taking you to GOV.UK One Login to sign in to this service")

9) Click 'Go to GOV.UK One Login'

10) You think we're done yet? Think again. Another landing page!

11) Click "Sign in"

12) Think they'd let you just enter an email and password on one page? Nope! Enter email

13) Click Continue

14) Enter password

Finally...

No idea how anyone who doesn't work for GDS can justify this. It's mad

It's a bug when you're neither 5 nor 89 or have used it 10 times before...

Look, I know it's a hard problem, and GDS have a lot of talented, smart people. I appreciate making something work for both an 18 year old and an 89 year old is a hard requiement.

IMHO there is nothing wrong with having those help docs easily available so you can read at your leisure, rather than being 'forced' to wade through it each time

Perhaps we can agree to disagree that it's not a 'bug' based on the Government's general approach to how it treats its citizens and what it deems as a requirement (as compared to eg the Netherlands/Germany which is a bit more 'it's not our fault you're stupid', 'go read the docs!')

It’s important to be empathetic here to how difficult these things can be for less tech literate people.

Adding more guidance and nudges doesn’t prevent capable users from succeeding, it just annoys them. But it means the lowest common denominators have a higher chance to succeed, which is much more valuable than level of annoyance.

And that’s pretty the point of accessibility.

No, the GDS should definitely replace all services on gov.uk to be only accessible via MCP. "Claude, I've logged into PayPal via oAuth, now renew my passport" /s

Hahaha that’s hilarious. I bet someone tried to sell them that already.

This feels super unfair to the gov.uk experience design which for me stands out head and shoulders above any other web workflow delivered by the public sector I've ever come across.

Pages are snappy, terse, consistent, clear and unsurprising. I agree this specific example feels a bit dark-patterny and occasionally stuff like self-assesment can have more steps than necessary, but overall it's really high quality.

In comparison the process for getting a DUNS number felt like going through some kind of a psychological experiment.

Finally, this:

> a party in power famous for paternalism

is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.

    Pages are snappy, terse, consistent, clear and unsurprising

This is a fantastic summary. Also, when you switch to gov.uk after using literally any other modern website, it's always surprising how fast it is.

You're trying to paint me as someone who hates the whole gov.uk experience - which is not what I wrote or implied

I'm allowed to be frustrated and to criticise it - I'm a tax-paying British citizen.

> is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.

It's sequitous and highly relevant as GDS is part of the Government. Your comment just reads like a reflexive defensive reply by someone who can't stand any criticism of something they personally like.

It's not sequitous mate.

The idea that a Labour Secretary of State would be phoning up the Cabinet Office screaming down the phone at them about interaction design on the website while a Tory one would just have their feet up is ludicrous and you know it.

They call it content design [1] and I love it! I've lived in a few countries, and gov.uk is by far the easiest way to interact with the government that I've experienced. As an immigrant, it can be confusing to navigate a new country's legal idiosyncrasies, so I appreciate them dumbing it down for me.

Although, I'll have to admit it's been getting worse lately. My latest annoyance is the "GOV.UK One Login" they introduced in addition to the existing "Government Gateway" login. I never know which I'm supposed to use on which page, and some pages accept either. Not great UX.

1: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design

I can’t figure out what you’re complaining about, why would it be a bad thing that it explains everything super clearly?

I’ve had only good experiences with gov.uk while I was living there, It’s significantly better than my home country’s digital infrastructure.

Imagine you go into a shop to buy a newspaper every day. And every day, the shop owner explains to you what a newspaper is, what it usually contains, how much it costs, and how to read it

Is that excellent interaction design and good customer service? (edit: not a rhetorical question fwiw)

Do you not get how awful of an analogy that is? You're implying you cant move forward until that explanation process is done. Last I checked you've got a finger and scroll wheel at your disposal.

Analogies aren't perfect by definition (it doesn't imply that, btw, you're reaching). Anyway, it's a weak reply to attack the analogy rather than the thought behind it.

I notice you're not the person I asked btw. No need to start a vendetta just because I have a different opinion about one aspect of gov.uk. That's a bad look, for you.

Ah apologies, I didn't realise there was an unwritten rule that replying to posts on a discussion forum wasn't allowed...

lol, sad - just trying to derail the conversation and attack me rather than engage in decent conversation.

if you say so.

Government services need to be as easily accessible and clear to understand as possible, they may be used by the elderly, people with learning disabilities or people who don’t speak the language of the country that well (like those who would want to enter it for tourism as in TFA) - designing them with the assumption that the user is a 5 year old who needs everything explained to them in simple terms is a good approach.

The fact that it’s slightly more tiring for users like you who already know all the details and just want to get to the point is at most a minor drawback that’s easily justifiable by the accessibility gains.

To answer your question specifically: No, for a newspaper vendor that’s not great interaction design, but if you replace newspaper with any government service and shop owner with the government, it sounds perfect to me. I also struggle to imagine a scenario in which you’d need to access those services every single day, but I may be missing something there.

Congratulations, you're a lot smarter than the average person. I understand this is sometimes a bit annoying, but at the end of the day it's probably something to be grateful for.

Awful take. Other than the broken mess that is One Login the whole gov.uk setup is a breath of fresh air compared to most countries online government services.

It's incredibly hard to cater for a wide audience, and they do it pretty damn well. Just because you fit in the "I know what I'm doing category" it doesn't mean they should strip away all the bits that help those not in that category.

I’m sorry but this is an awful take. gov.uk’s design is excellent, probably the best government interface in the world. My friends from other European countries are literally shocked at how easy things are to do (often, tasks that in their countries would require going to some bureaucrat _in person_ and waiting hours, sometimes multiple times).