Gov.uk named Design of the Year
Gov.uk, the website developed by the Government Digital Service to combine all of the UK Government’s websites into a single domain, has won the Design Museum’s 2013 Design of the Year Award.
The project saw off a shortlist which included the Morph Folding Wheel, designed by Vitamins, and Konstantin Grcic’s Medici Chair.
Gov.uk launched at the beginning of last year, and is intended as a one-stop shop for Government services, where users can, for example, register for a birth certificate, apply for UK citizenship or find out when the next bank holiday is.
The site has now brought in 21 of 24 UK ministerial departments and is also folding in more than 300 other Government departments and organisations, such as the Driving Standards Agency and HM Revenue and Customs.
As well as publishing the gov.uk design principles online, GDS also put the website’s code on Github, allowing sites worldwide – such as Honolulu Answers – to emulate it.
Prime Minister David Cameron says, ‘Gov.uk is just another example of Britain’s world-class design talent standing out on a global stage; in this case helping to enhance the modern relationship between the public and Government.’
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The new gov.uk website is just an example of a really boring standard company intranet. I cannot understand how this has managed to win as it is surely the worst entrant in the competition. If this is the standard of something which can win a major prize in Britain today then we will soon be a total laughing stock to the rest of the world.
Chris, Mike Reed has written a useful review of the site that might help to change your mind: http://bit.ly/V1DcyH
@Chris Woodcock, agree, but not as boring as the Australian version…
http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/information/centrelink-website?utm_id=7
…which doesn’t work well across platform and has page(s) behaviour issues!!
The redesigned site means this one website now replaces 2,000 websites. How is that boring and how can you fail to see the merit in that.
Did you really think it won just because it had a pretty face???
It’s not that simple ( if you’re good )
@Chris Woodcock – The website has to handle vast amounts of data from a diverse range of websites. This type of website is all about clarity and functionality – the people who visit it want to get to specific information fast. The last thing it needs to be is be an all singing dancing visual treat that’s meant to impress hipsters.