In an effort to talk a little more about what we’re up to at work it seems only right to mention the new Government Service Design Manual (and accompanying Digital by Default Service Standard). Their release is the next step in the Government Digital Strategy, providing a guide to what “digital services so good that people prefer to use them” look like and a framework to assess whether new services are ready to launch.
We’ve released the Manual as a public beta because we want to get as much input as we can from our colleagues within government and around the wider community that builds services for the modern world. Like many others at GDS, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months writing up what I’ve learned about building for the web and making things within government, and it’s great to see that content getting better thanks to all the feedback we’re getting.
So please let us know what you think. We accept Github Pull Requests or feedback through a few other routes. There are also more words about the whole thing in Richard’s piece about where this came from, Andrew’s piece on beta testing the standard, and Gareth’s piece on the ‘devops’ flavoured content.