6/26/2008

Direct.gov.uk - What a bloody useless website

I have spent hours tonight trying to change my driving license online via direct.gov.uk, the much heralded government website that is supposed to make our lives easier and simpler.

Utter bollocks.

Direct.gov.uk has to be one of the blandest most antiquated and user unfriendly website that exists anywhere, and no, it didn't allow me to do what I wanted to do either.

The very fact that it will not even let you print off documents and instead allows you only to order documents to be posted to you is a sign of how little it saves the tax payer in costs. Why on earth should a stamp be put on an envelope and it be posted when just as easily I could print of the documents at home and then take them in to my local post office (if the government have not closed it by then).

Who ever designed this website should be fired.

4 comments:

Robert Wright said...

You aren't the only one to think so!
I always enjoy directionlessgov.com, See http://www.directionlessgov.com/about.html for a quick chuckle.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I agree Nich. I tried to make changes to my licence. I gave up in the end. The site is a shocker, but not untypical of government sites.

James Higham said...

Interestingly [for me anyway], I included those thoughts some time back - you're right - more than bloody useless. Makes one despair, Nich.

Fitaloon said...

Jusr read the reported on HMRC and you will see why these websites are so crap. No proper strategy and years of change have created systems that are not fit for purpose and the spaghetti of systems is joined together by disillusioned employee's doing their best with poor tools.
Just what you need for things like The Spine, DNA, ID cards ete etc.

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