The UK Government Maintains a Blog About Their Website Designs

The United Kingdom's government is aiming to provide better customer service to its citizens. The government collects a lot of data. The design system has a team that creates patterns and components so that users can input their data in an easier way. The last thing the nation's government wants to do is make it difficult for a person to enter their information. A person who has problems would have to call a help line, which essentially adds to the taxpayer's burden.

Many online data collection forms require the entry of numbers, such as dates. Some people prefer a keyboard with large buttons, such as a telephone's keypad. Until recently, the United Kingdom's government's design system for dates required a number HTML element for this to work.

The government recently moved away from that HTML input for numbers to a numeric pattern. Type equals number has been problematic for accessibility reasons. It cannot be dictated and appears unlabeled. The systems also needed to have more increment options. This is for fields such as household size or dates.

Scrolling has also been an issue for entering information into the United Kingdom's government forms. The government is also striving to fix accessibility on mobile devices. It has set up backwards compatibility for iOS. It has also made some changes for inputs that are only numbers. Citizens can go to the United Kingdom's government design group blog in order to learn more of the details, see some examples and see what else is coming in terms of changes to government websites.

A large online design community took a look at this blog post and had some comments about the United Kingdom's efforts to improve the accessibility of government websites. One person found the post to be well-written and informative, and they added that the United Kingdom's government has a solid history of making its websites with a good user interface or user experience. Another person commented about the website being the best interface they have ever had on a website when they needed to enter information, and several people seconded this person's thoughts. For more information click here https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/24/why-the-gov-uk-design-system-team-changed-the-input-type-for-numbers/.