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Re: UK.gov snubs blind, disabled and pensioners

for

From: Léonie Watson
Date: May 1, 2013 11:55AM

Sarah Bourne wrote:
"While I agree wholeheartedly that it's a travesty that applications like
this ever saw the light of day, I think we need to be fair to UK.gov. They
did not build this app - that was done long, long before the UK.gov project
was started - they just have not fixed it yet. In this case, the "fix"
would have to be a total replacement. I'm sure they have a long list of old
applications that need attention."

Since Gov.UK went live six months ago, 24 central government departments,
the PM's office and the Deputy PM's office, and all UK embassies around the
world have become part of the new platform. In the process we've published
50,000 pages of content (much of it rewritten for better readability),
discarded 116,000 pages of content and files, redirected 275,000 URLs to the
new site, and closed 222 sub-domains [1].

With a handful of exceptions [2], the remaining 300 agencies and public
bodies will be moved to the new platform over the next 12 months or so.

The aim is for government services to meet the new Digital By Default
Service Standard by April 2014 [3]. The Gov.UK design principles make
inclusive design a core expectation [4], and the service design manual has
information on accessibility, assisted digital, alternative formats, testing
with disabled people and more [5].

Which is a roundabout way of agreeing with you Sarah. It was a travesty that
websites like this ever appeared, but we're working on making it better. In
public sector terms Gov.UK has moved at warp speed, with the alpha, beta and
live stages completing on time and on budget. Even so, it's going to take a
little while yet for the transformation to complete, and even then there'll
be plenty more to do :)


Léonie.

[1] http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2013/04/30/24-departments-later/
[2] http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/12/11/exemptions/
[3] https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/digital-by-default
[4] http://www.gov.uk/designprinciples
[5] https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/browse