Data visualisation: joining the dots of government publishing
...involved in the activity described by each page. But what does that data look like as a whole? Just before Christmas, developer Edd Sowden thought it might be interesting to...
Two helpful new features for publishers
Posted by:
Alice Newton - former Product Manager for GOV.UK, Government Digital Service, Posted on:
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Categories:
Product changes
Faster documents filter in publisher Editors often tell us that the slow and confusing documents filter is the worst bit of the departments and policy publisher. So we've made it quicker. We've also redesigned it so that you can select …
Remote research: get insights from users in under a week
...mix of users, you can also include a couple of questions in the screener to help segment participants. For example, if you want a mix of frequent/infrequent users, ask how...
Detailed guides: when and how to use them
The information in this blogpost may now be out of date. See the current GOV.UK content and publishing guidance. Now that agencies and ALBs are beginning to create detailed guides, based on their validated user needs, we thought it would …
6 principles for smoothing out the user journey
The information in this blogpost may now be out of date. See the current GOV.UK content and publishing guidance. Our analytics guru Lana Gibson recently showed us how to improve our users’ experience by looking at what people were searching …
Removing format names
Back in June, I wrote about retiring our format icons — they didn’t test well and ultimately weren’t useful to users. Though the icons were removed, we kept the format names. These are labels that denote the type of content …
Introducing user research to transition
GDS places a lot of emphasis on user needs, and with good reason. Without knowing what our users’ needs are, how can we provide them with the right information and...
We think people like being able to preview CSV files
Earlier in the month, we introduced a feature to GOV.UK which allowed users to get a sneak preview of CSV files without having to download them. When we wrote about the change we promised to give you some early feedback …
Better feed links
There are several pages on GOV.UK which have feeds you can subscribe to in a feed reader. Feeds allow you to see what is new across these pages without having to visit them individually. In the past, we linked directly to …
Specialist users on GOV.UK
The original vision for GOV.UK identified three broad user groups and until recently much of our energy has been spent on the first two, resulting in the 'Services and information' and 'Departments and policy' sections of the site. There is …
Related content and links
Download the GOV.UK app
The GOV.UK app went live in public beta in July 2025. Find out how to download it for free on GOV.UK.