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Comment by guilhermeasg | Hacker News Reader

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guilhermeasg

I haven't used them myself, but the GOV.UK components look and function great.

https://govuk-components.netlify.app/

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That's the Ruby/Rails components, mostly.

The Design System is here: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/get-started/

https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/

where did you get that other url

Just did a quick search on GitHub. Turns out the one I picked is from the DfE org:

https://github.com/DFE-Digital/govuk-components

Wait why is the UK gov using a netlify.app link? I'm not a web dev so I'm not sure if that's common or more convenient

Well, why not? It's a great host with a whole bunch of features you'd have to invent yourself otherwise like feature branch previews. It's a static site/documentation site afterall.

If I wanted to appear/be professional/institutional/official I'd use a custom domain though. Which i assume netlify supports, let's look... sure https://docs.netlify.com/domains-https/custom-domains/

In this case to a proper government domain... aha, I bet there's some policy against pointing .gov.uk hostnames to a third-party platform?

>In this case to a proper government domain... aha, I bet there's some policy against pointing .gov.uk hostnames to a third-party platform?

Some guidance that might be relevant: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/use-your-govuk-domain-name?step-...

Doesn't seem to rule out using a .gov.uk domain name for something hosted on netlify.

I agree it looks cheesy and makes me wonder if it's really official government documetnation, without a .gov.uk hostname (and SSL cert, naturally).

former netlify employee here. all sites on netlify have a netlify subdomain, that doesnt go away when you add a custom domain. its just useful for deploy previews and stuff, content is basically the same. nothing untoward here

I think we're misunderstanding each other. I'd expect an official UK government site hosted on netlify to have a custom .gov.uk domain and to use that to refer to the site. Same as most large commercial enterprises probably do, right? Instead of using the netlify subdomain as the public host.

Am I misunderstanding something?

It's my side project and definitely not official. It's a library aimed at making it easy to use the official components[0] Rails-friendly.

[0] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/

I believe it's about not using their domain as whole.

They're not, dunno where that other link came from but it's not the official. Sneaky

https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/

This is my side project, I'm a dev currently contracting at DfE. This library and the form builder[0] make working with the design system easier for Rails devs.

[0] https://govuk-form-builder.netlify.app/

I am not a fan of Gov UK framework. For once, the banner takes up 50% of the space on my mobile browser.

All design elements and controls are excessively large and bloated. Negative space is liberally applied everywhere.

USWDS strikes a good balance.

You have to remember who this is being designed for - citizens wanting to use government services, who may not necessarily have great eyesight, great computer literacy or even literacy in general.

The last thing you should ever want is for someone to fail to apply for welfare benefits because they were overwhelmed by the website design.

I agree that the cookie banner could be smaller though.

Yes, and USWDS does it without being bloated. Far more usable IMO.

There is room for well designed, compact UI that is also accessible. It is not that strict of a trade-off as you suggest.

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