It’s been a few weeks since we collected together some of the best blog posts from across GDS. Looking back over nearly 3 months of updates, it’s clear to see what we’ve been delivering a lot.
So here’s the latest round-up of useful blog posts tailored specially for those leading the transition to GOV.UK in government agencies and arm’s length bodies.
Iterating the design of GOV.UK
Regular readers will know that we’re hot on evolving GOV.UK to ensure it meets user needs and remains simple, clear and fast to use. Alice Newton wrote about changes to the organisation’s landing page. Will Callaghan wrote about changes being made to metadata to keep things simple and clear. Similarly, Ben Andrews wrote about changes we’ve made to site search and things we’re testing on specialist topics.
New format types
Content designers and editors may be aware of new publication types we’ve introduced on GOV.UK in recent weeks. Read about the changes in Alice’s post and catch-up on the latest developments on a manual that’s in testing.
Resources for content designers
Clare Lenton in our content design team has written a post that summarises where content editors and designers can find a bunch of useful resources, from the GDS style guide to helpful posts about policy pages, HTML publications and top tasks, among others. Also, have a read of the post by Martin Richardson, Digital Services Manager at Driver Vehicle Standards Agency, about how a single word can cause a 600% increase in clickthroughs.
More homepage features now available
Graham Francis in our product team announced last week that more things can now be featured on an agency’s landing page.
Understanding mainstream content
Jon Sanger and Padma Gillen have written a few blog posts about mainstream content: what it is, how the GDS team works, how an agency should request a change and what happens next.
Using Transition Tool after transition
Many agencies are beginning to use the Transition Tool to enter their mappings. Dave Mann has written a post about using the tool after transition, and read his glossary about useful go-live technical terms.
It all starts with user needs
The Maslow tool now contains nearly 1,500 user needs but we’re expecting that to increase massively over the next few weeks. Read Lisa Scott’s post about how Maslow and Publisher are now connected.
Helpful pointers
With transition now in full swing, transition managers are picking up on a few issues that regularly crop up, so I’ve pulled together a list of useful posts:
- How GOV.UK search works
- How to request a friendly URL
- What to check before you publish content - a 2i checklist
- How and when to unpublish, delete and archive content (updated)
- How to get a GOV.UK blog
- How to get a group page (updated)
Mark Hazelby
GOV.UK Transition Communications Lead
@markhazelby
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