Hacker News Reader

Comment by Lior539 | Hacker News Reader

On a side note, the Gov.UK site is one of the best sites Ive come across, especially for a government. It's incredibly simple and easy to navigate. It's easy to find any information you're looking for and all information is explained in very clear and simple english (unlike many other government sites, which are convoluted and fill of jargon).

IMO this is the gold standard for government websites

View on HN

One failing, which I think it's significant, is that pages which are written as authoritative do not specify where they derive their authority from. Specifically, what I'm thinking of is finding information that says something is obligatory or forbidden but doesn't say what laws/rules/customs/departments make this the case. More links to legislation.gov.uk would improve the democratic status of the website.

Agreed. Only yesterday i wanted to know what the actual legal rules about working time are; starting here, the top Google result, it's a dead end:

https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours

Absolutely. This is an excellent point. I’m sure it’s no accident either.

And it only got worse during the pandemic when the Gov purposefully tried to conflate their word with the law, using gov.uk to do so.

The IRS does this too; you can ask the IRS for their opinion on a tax matter, and they can give you a letter that states their position; which is a defense if you follow it, but it's not necessarily how the courts would rule. Many times it is worth following the letter of the law and being ready to defend it in court.

There are a few services that seem almost deliberately bad though.

Tax Free Childcare is a scheme that allows you to pay for daycare and get a 20% discount applied via the government.

It works quite well, but I'm convinced there is a deliberate attempt to frustrate people and stop them using it to save money.

For example, you cannot bookmark the sign-in page, you have to search for it from the gov.uk homepage each time and go through several intro pages. And then you have username + password + 2FA + 3 security questions.

And you have to login every 3 months to re-declare your eligibility.

> There are a few services that seem almost deliberately bad though.

The UK's Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency takes this to an extreme by not offering online versions of some key services, such as re-applying for a driving license after a medical suspension. If your re-application involves a fee, you have to send them a (paper) cheque or postal order. I do understand that a postal order is a valid form of payment, even in the year 2022 (it can be used by people without a bank account), but not to offer credit card payment or bank transfer is amazing.

I can confirm that the DVLA treats everyone it deals with as a liar and criminal, even if no crime or deception is involved. It took me a decade to get my driving licence back after it was confiscated; it needed renewing, and the renewal form required me to state whether I had received treatment for alcohol problems. I told the truth - I had received treatment a few years back, I was clean, and I could prove it. Snatch - licence revoked. Cue ten years of legal and medical hassle and cost.

[Edit] I didn't own a car, I'm against private vehicles on the whole, and especially ICE private cars. I wanted to be able to hire a car occasionally. And a driving licence can be a requirement for certain jobs, even if they aren't "driving" jobs. A driving licence is the standard ID here; if you have neither a passport nor a DL, you will have to jump through hoops to prove your ID. So I'm angry that the DVLA can administratively deprive you of rights for ten years, without the matter ever coming before the judiciary.

> you cannot bookmark the sign-in page [...]

It's quite well hidden but the link to sign straight in is here:

https://www.gov.uk/sign-in-childcare-account

You are absolutely on the mark regarding this service though. It's bananas.

The gov.uk sites have indeed got a lot better (although "best I've come across" isn't language I'd have chosen).

UK government websites used to be AWFUL. Navigation and signposting is still awful; but UX has improved a lot in the last two years. And their approach to cross-device UX isn't bad (it's impossible to be "good" with mobile devices, IMO). But ten years ago, my sense was that government websites really didn't want people to interact with the government electronically at all. You had to use Internet Explorer; you had to authenticate, which meant getting an ID, which required physical documents, so a postal interaction.

It's much better now, but that doesn't mean it's good.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com