Comment by forloop | Hacker News Reader

Comment by forloop | Hacker News Reader

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I was using the job search[1] on the gov.uk domain yesterday, and the UX is extremely poor!

If the job site was a for-profit, it would probably be put out of business by competitors! But, since the government can jail people for not handing over their resources, products aren't held accountable by the Market (big 'M').

I wouldn't even mind if it had an API[2], so I could make a more useful tool[3]. But instead I have to manually go through a ton of jobs each day so I can get unemployment handouts from daddy government (if there was no such thing as VAT, I probably wouldn't need these! Anyway).

Gov.uk looks a bit nice with its san serif typeface[4] and minimalist design; but it's varnish on a clunky turd.

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[1] https://www.gov.uk/jobsearch

[2] I couldn't find one yesterday. I'm going to have another look.

[3] Currently learning Python and looking for a little side project.

[4] Looking at the CSS, the particular font is 'nta'—and is presumably custom.

To be fair to the gov.uk team, Universal Job Search appears not to be run by them. They have a form on gov.uk which submits to the job search application from direct.gov (the organisation that was bad enough to convince government to give gov.uk a go in the first place).

> They have a form on gov.uk which submits to the job search application from direct.gov (the organisation that was bad enough to convince government to give gov.uk a go in the first place).

That validates my concern about quality.

Would you prefer that gov.uk didn't give you any way to access Universal Jobmatch at all? It's a legacy system that people still need to access. I assume the Job Centre have contracts that they need to fulfil that would prevent gov.uk from replacing it.

The marginal benefit—above and beyond other options—of Universal Jobmatch is so low (and probably negative) that it doesn't matter either way. Being mandated to use a suboptimal tool results in a net loss. Taking that into consideration, my answer is 'yes! Please'.

You would be mandated to use it whether or not gov.uk linked to it. gov.uk isn't in control of that - the DWP is. Maybe, once the DWP's contract with Monster expires in a few years, gov.uk will be able to make a case that they should be running it.

So your question relates to whether it makes a difference to me if the job search app is available via gov.uk?

No it doesn't. From the outside it's all bullshit branding. As a user I want to be able to find jobs, refine searches, use categories, and other activities based around getting-the-job-done.

Edit: URLs for unique resources works fine. The gov.uk as a namespace doesn't help usability. I'm happy to be corrected with evidence.

> No it doesn't. From the outside it's all bullshit branding. As a user I want to be able to find jobs, refine searches, use categories, and other activities based around getting-the-job-done.

It's not gov.uk's fault that you have a shitty experience doing that. The Government Digital Service (most well-known as "gov.uk") have never been involved in the Universal Jobmatch site that was contracted out by the DWP to Monster without consulting the GDS. I have no idea why you're attacking gov.uk for it - I repeat, they had literally nothing to do with it.

> URLs for unique resources works fine. The gov.uk as a namespace doesn't help usability. I'm happy to be corrected with evidence.

gov.uk is a platform developed by the GDS, not simply a namespace. It covers everything on the "gov.uk" main website, and a selection of subdomains, but not all (anything that existed while DirectGov was still a thing is not maintained by the GDS, essentially).

The majority of gov.uk revolves around a CMS that can manage many types of content. It provides a consistent interface for the people who create the content - people from every single Government department - to publish it, and a consistent backend that allows the developers to build new services that utilise the existing infrastructure.

Before, we had a pile of independent websites built and maintained by each Government department with no integrated search or organisation, a lot of duplicated technical effort as everyone had to maintain their own CMS, and an extremely poor user experience.

> I have no idea why you're attacking gov.uk for it - I repeat, they had literally nothing to do with it.

I'm answering your questions as frankly as I can. The questions involve gov.uk, and so the answers involve gov.uk.

> gov.uk is a platform developed by the GDS, not simply a namespace.

From the outside it's difficult to make the distinction. I'm talking from the perspective of a user.

> Before, we had a pile of independent websites built and maintained by each Government department with no integrated search or organisation, a lot of duplicated technical effort as everyone had to maintain their own CMS, and an extremely poor user experience.

For the scope of gov.uk, I can appreciate how that's beneficial. The dynamic I've seen is there's a bad solution to something which isn't even a problem—as there are already better job sites around. If my premise is correct, then even if gov.uk solved the UX problem for Universal Jobmatch, it's still solving a problem which doesn't really need to be solved (a clone of a job website isn't very valuable). And that government fixes problems which it creates, and then pats itself on the back. What I've said goes outside of the specific points I've been making, but that's how I see the context.

I'm not even anti-government, necessarily. I'm still making my mind up. Maybe the need for inequality is more important than efficiency and maximum wealth? Some of the things governments do are egregious; but so are some of the things individuals do. Knowing the answer wouldn't be of much benefit, anyway: the government isn't going anywhere any time soon, regardless!

> The dynamic I've seen is there's a bad solution to something which isn't even a problem—as there are already better job sites around.

gov.uk did not build Universal Jobmatch. gov.uk did not build Universal Jobmatch. Universal Jobmatch is not part of gov.uk. Universal Jobmatch is not part of gov.uk. It is a separate site, operated by separate people, under an entirely separate Government department, which happens to be linked from the gov.uk website.

I'm not entirely sure what part of this isn't getting to you. The DWP is to blame for outsourcing Universal Jobmatch to Monster, gov.uk has absolutely nothing to do with it any more than, say, the passport office does. What you are saying is equivalent to blaming the passport office for Universal Jobmatch - it's crazy, they had nothing to do with it.

If you're angry that Universal Jobmatch exists at all, that's still the DWP's fault, not gov.uk's. gov.uk doesn't get to decide other departments' policies for them, it is in charge of developing digital services to fulfil those policies - and Universal Jobmatch is a legacy system, so gov.uk didn't even do that for the DWP.

> Maybe, once the DWP's contract with Monster expires in a few years, gov.uk will be able to make a case that they should be running it.

I'm talking about a hypothetical situation based on what you said previously.

If you read what I've said with that in mind, it should make sense! Why wouldn't I take account of what's already been talked about?

Universal Jobmatch is built and maintained by the for-profit private firm Monster, not the gov.uk team.

The Monster.co.uk main site is better. They still aren't held accountable to the market. Being for-profit per se is the wrong distinction! Free market may be more apt.

That explains why there's so many jobs from Monster on there.

I agree that it's terrible and that its use is mandatory only compounds its failures.

The custom font is most likely New Transport or a modification of it. It's a variant of the typeface used on British road signs.

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2014/03/05/new-transport-for-gov-uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_%28typeface%29#New_Tr...

They're using it for its aesthetic and for its keeping with the national infrastructure.

It's almost certainly a modification, if it is New Transport. After all, what makes a road sign readable is different from body copy. But that's an interesting comment!

Aside: I've probably been past the road sign on that Wikipedia page.

"what makes a road sign readable is different from body copy"

I thought the very same, seems a odd choice to me. Interesting that they're using it though. It would be wonderful for them to provide more information about it as the current pickings are very slim.

They've provided a bit more information on how they chose it here: https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2012/07/05/a-few-notes-on-typography...

This reads like a tea party post from about 2007.

Not really. Defensible facts.

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