It’s a long time – ten years – since I first put this slide on a screen:
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| DWP Conference 30th January 2003 |
In later iterations, I modified it a little:
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| Dan Jellinek Transforming Government Conference 13th May 2004 |
And sometimes I added this slide to try and emphasise the point:
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| Also Dan Jellinek Conference |
And just to make it clear it was about the citizen (the user in today’s words):
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| 13th May 2004 |
There was also a post, “There Can Be Only One”, in July 2004 showing that the debate about how many sites were needed was still in full flow.
At the same time, I was able to show that thinking in action:
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| BITS Conference 13th May 2004 |
I remember only too well how we took the sprawling content on the Department of Health’s then site, http://www.doh.gov.uk and turned it into something with a far greater consistency and user focus on a new site, http://www.dh.gov.uk. So when I read a post on the GDS blog from Alice Ainsworth who was doing it all over again, 9 years on, I knew where her head was at. DH has now moved 4 times in ten years – from the original platform to DotP, to Stellent, to WordPress and now to gov.uk. Let’s hope that there are not as many moves over the next ten.
It’s impressive to see the figures that GDS’ “Inside Government” team report:
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| 18 out of 24 … |
This has been a long journey. Long, in fact, doesn’t even describe it – as Gerry Gavigan’s neatly summarised steps show (and, as others, including Jerry Fishenden, have also shown in the past).
Ten year, or more, then, to crack the problem of delivering a single, comprehensive site covering all of government – ok, there are some stragglers to come on board in the centre and the job of taking on the agencies and NDPBs is massive and only just starting. But certainly more progress in the last year than in the previous ten. It’s an impressive job, no question.
Shaping the transactions so that they make sense to the user … delivering the green line’s upward slope in my original slide … how long for that now?
