Tag archives for Government Digital Service
Verify on Gov.UK – a user experience
Verify postcard (image: GDS / Crown Copyright) I had occasion to become a beta user for the Government Digital Service sponsored Verify service (previously known as IDA - Identity Assurance). I'd come across Verify before at work, I spent the first six months of 2014 as the product owner for a digital service that was looking at integrating Verify at a later stage. Right now there are only two accredited providers for Verify, although there are several others building their services for later stages. You have the choice of either Digidentity or Experian. Both of these have been through an accreditation process with GDS. I initially chose Digidentity because I'm in favour of competition and it was less recognisable to most people than Experian is. Digidentity I really liked the way that Digidentity looked, and they had a clear process…
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Thunderclap campaign #StartatGOVUK
The UK's Government Digital Service are launching a thunderclap () to encourage people to start at when accessing UK government information and services (#StartatGOVUK). Be awesome and beat the scammers! Misleading websites There is a problem with websites pretending to be official UK government services. Some of these take money from people. These unscrupulous people use google ads to get to the top of search engine rankings so that they are clicked on by people looking to interact with government. Scammers make people pay for free services ( E111 / EHIC are provided free, scammers charge people £20-£30) People pay twice for services ( scammers make people pay more for government services and often the person also has to pay for the real service when they access it - this has happened on driving licence renewals, tax self-assessment and urgent passport services) Dealing with the problem There are two main parts to the…
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Next Steps
I've had a busy couple of weeks. First I had an Open University exam for the end of MST121 (Using Mathematics). The day after that I was presenting (and facilitating a couple of sessions) at our Directorate away day. The following day I spent 4 hours with the Government Digital Service, which was very interesting. GDS is a very interesting environment, it has a buzz about it that is very different from your normal central government department. I think it is something to do with the very high geek quotient present. In the space of two desks one guy was in a tweed suit with a (proper) bow tie and another was in t-shirt and shorts. There was also a lot of lego about. I actually quite liked the use of lego minifigures on their Agile tracker board. Each dev…