We don’t just write the content for GOV.UK – we design it. The steps sound simple, but they’re fundamental to the way we work: understanding user needs, designing content that meets those needs, and iterating to improve it in response to user feedback.
Dealing with government usually isn’t something people do by choice, they do it because they have to. We want to make sure that our content does what they need it to do, as simply and as quickly as possible.
We’ve written a lot about content design over the past couple of years. Here’s a short selection of interesting posts on the subject, starting with a short video interview with our own Padma Gillen, in which he explains the qualities that make a good content designer.
Before we produce any content, we make sure it meets a user need.
We take a user need and present it in the best way possible.
Government information can be complex, but we try to use plain english and repeat the mantra ‘clarity is king’.
We don’t like FAQs – they’re too slow, they lead to duplication, and they’re tonally wrong (and Twitter agrees).
Content has got to be easy to understand, simple to find and, it goes without saying, useful.
Like everything we do at GDS, we always iterate, iterate, and then iterate again.
Our aim is to make your experience simpler, clearer and faster.
You – our users – inform our style guide; it’s yours. That’s why our style guide is ever-changing.
GOV.UK will cater for varied audiences trying to complete a wide range of tasks, so consistent standards are vital.
We want to get out of the way of people completing what they came to do. That’s why we aim to write less and say more.
Smart answers are a great tool for content designers to present complex information in a quick and simple way.
We don’t need it to ‘build the GOV.UK brand’ by being obviously quirky or clever, and it doesn’t need to feel especially weighty or governmental. Our hope is that no one ever notices the language.
We aim to make information easy to understand, easy to retain, and easy to act upon (where possible – government can be complex).
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