The benefits of migrating Gov.uk Pay’s codebase to the Gov.uk Design System

GOV.UK really is a testament to what you can achieve when you inhouse and centralise provision of Government IT based on Open Source principles, instead of different departments outsourcing different bits to different agencies with no real unifying system (what we had before, and still have in some areas of Government).

For those who are unfamiliar, GOV.UK's mission is twofold: to provide a set of standards for Government IT services - so in theory no Government IT service can be deployed without signoff from GDS - and a set of tools they build themselves that provide a platform to deliver Government services really easily - e.g. GOV.UK Notify provides a single service for sending texts and emails from Government services, so that every department doesn't need to build their own (slightly different) implementation.

It's a huge win for citizens and a massive cost-saving overall for Government. Sadly there are always those who will attempt to tear it down (because they want to use IBM X or Microsoft Y, perhaps because their friend's Christmas bonus depends on it, but more likely because the organisational changes required to think of your department as providing a service to people, rather than requiring them to do things for you is too great).

Bravo GDS team for another step in the right direction.

http://gov.uk and other UK government websites that has had involvement from GDS(Government Digital Services) are some of the best websites I've seen. They are lightweight, to the point, accessible and still look good. If the whole web was more like UK government sites I'd be very happy.

Cool tidbit: gov.uk only loads a single third party script(GA)

Gov.uk is, in my experience, really really good. I find the design clean, the functionality easy to use, and the text clearly written. I'm currently setting up a business in the US and the contrast to US government websites is very apparent.

Similar effort underway by the USDS in the United States.

Really want to underline how cool the USDS are. They remind me of the Smoke Jumpers who in the 30’s really helped build out the forest fire fighting capability of the government in Montana. It was from that experience that the D-Day invasion ultimately relied on with paratroopers. They are a real crack squad that has survived now 2 totally different administrations so their prospects seem high for the future.

https://v2.designsystem.digital.gov/

I think one piece of context that's possibly missing from these GOV.UK stories is how long the people involved have been working to get into the good position they are in now. I remember going to a talk (probably at XPDay in London) about 5 years ago and being impressed by the huge amount of organisational work they had done already. They were saying that they were expecting really good results in the years ahead, but that it was a massive challenge to solve all of the people problems up front. If any of the GDS team are reading, I'd love to see some more blog posts about how the non-technical hurdles were overcome.