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GOV.UK page performance: are we fulfilling our content goals?
In the content team we’ve developed new theme dashboards that give us a page-level indication of GOV.UK mainstream content performance. These dashboards are useful to everyone in GDS, as GOV.UK user...
View ArticleGDS visits UKGovcamp
On Saturday 25th January 2014 we visited UKGovcamp; the annual ‘unconference’ for people interested in how the public sector does digital stuff. The event was held at City Hall, Southbank, London. Find...
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Looking back at Sprint 14
We made two short videos for Sprint 14 that give you a little glimpse into the work being done by teams all over the country to transform services. Both show what it’s like to be working on the...
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Improving GOV.UK on mobile devices
Mobile use on GOV.UK has increased significantly since launch in October 2012, moving from around 15% to 23% of the overall audience. We are now starting to improve the experience for mobile and...
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Striking a balance between security and usability
Last year our boss Mike Bracken talked at the Code for America Summit in San Francisco, and spoke about the need to strike a balance between usability and security. There is a point beyond which...
View ArticleSharing Sprint 14
With Sprint 14 now behind us, we wanted to share Baroness Martha Lane Fox’s opening speech, and the presentations and workshops given on the day. Martha used her talk to remind everyone how far we’ve...
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How to find all the maps published on GOV.UK
Government does a lot of stuff with maps, and if you like maps you might like to know about this clever trick for finding every single one that gets published on GOV.UK. Start off at the Publications...
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Weekend links
We wanted to try something new – sharing the things we’ve liked over the past week in a blog post. Let us know what you think: @GDSTeam 2014 is the Year of Code – encouraging people across the country...
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Guest Post: Clarity is king – the evidence that reveals the desperate need to...
Mark Morris is Head of Clear English at the Department of Health and a former speechwriter for the Health Secretary. Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is. So said Publilius...
View ArticleGDS this week: Innovating with SMEs and fast track apprentices
Speaking on the day HRH The Duke of York visited GDS, Dr. Brian Gannon of Kainos Software talks about the innovative work SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) are doing with government departments like...
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Social media – Must we measure?
It’s been some months since GDS published our social media guidance for Civil Servants, and there’s been lots of interest across the civil service (and beyond) in the idea of social in government....
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SEO performance on launch: comparing GOV.UK with Directgov
The search engine optimisation landscape is changing. As I have blogged previously, we are doing our best to make sure we use the same search terms as our users to make content easier to find. Now that...
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Making tools for makers
Imagine that you are a violin maker, and you have only a chisel and a hacksaw. With such inappropriate tools, you’re going to either a) make a really shoddy violin, b) spend an age trying to get the...
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This week at GDS
Following a busy few weeks here at GDS, some staff holidays and a few winter colds have left the office feeling a little bit quieter than usual. For the most part the team have been preparing for the...
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Changes to the strategy
A few weeks ago I wrote a post detailing the technical side of the Government Digital Strategy. One of the things I spoke about was how we were keen to keep improving the site and fixing bugs. We were...
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Rewriting policy plainly
Janet wrote recently about how we’re presenting policy differently on Inside Government, but what does that mean for individual departments? Paola Wright, Online Policy Desk Officer for the Ministry of...
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People management in an agile setting
After speaking at AgileTeaCamp, I thought I would share how people management has evolved in the GDS Delivery Team. What you get for free with agile Agile product teams are self-managing. With the...
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Traffic trends to GOV.UK
We’ve been monitoring the volume of traffic to GOV.UK since launch. We want to ensure that the people who used to rely on Directgov and Business Link can still find the reliable and authoritative...
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Watching Inside Government evolve
The department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has been working with GDS since before GDS existed to help get department websites ready for the move to GOV.UK. John Turnbull from BIS...
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This week at GDS
It’s slightly strange to be reporting on another week without a major launch but it’s something we should get used to. One of the main advantages of iterative working is that the big bangs of launching...
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