Anyone worked for the government?

[PerfectStorm]

The visa applications for most countries (even the US ESTA system) are notoriously shocking for some reason.

[DaveB]

Can't be GDS. No way would they sign off the image quality at the bottom...

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2014/09/18/v...om-5000-miles/

We’re extremely grateful to GDS for support with content design.

Thats the Chinese version

This refers to the general Visa site.

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/10/09/t...und-the-world/

And this one

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2014/08/22/h...ital-services/

[eek]

It's another gov.uk beta site with the sticky, childlike fingerprints of GDS all over it. Why bother testing anything, just make it live and let the users do it. Cos thats what Agile Development is all about innit.

Can't be GDS. No way would they sign off the image quality at the bottom...

[DaveB]

It's another gov.uk beta site with the sticky, childlike fingerprints of GDS all over it. Why bother testing anything, just make it live and let the users do it. Cos thats what Agile Development is all about innit.

[dude69]

You sure that's the correct permit? That one's for Family Members, i.e. spouses, eligible parents etc...

Perhaps UK General Visit visa is what you should be looking at?

EEA FP's are issued FOC, so maybe they've put the junior on it cos it doesn't bring any cash in...

Yeah that's the one I want, they have EU spouses but they are foreign nationals.

[vetran]

Anyone worked for the government?

Not in my experience. They all seem to be playing at it.

[eek]

Regardless of anything else on the site who signed off the credit card images at the bottom of that home page

[TheFaQQer]

Does HM Gov not employ system's analysts, testers, do they literally just stick this tulip online?

No - they get Crapita, Futulipsu, CrapGemini etc in to do it for them.

[tractor]

...

Just working through the new online UK visa system (not for me, for some people I am inviting to visit for a 3-day party, I wanted to test it myself before I told them to apply, applying as family members of EU citizens) at https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk

It's bloody shocking.

Does HM Gov not employ system's analysts, testers, do they literally just stick this tulip online?

...snip

It's called risk aversion, they contract to business process outsourcers like Tulipita and become customers, then they can pretend to be as outraged as us when it turns out badly.

[stek]

You sure that's the correct permit? That one's for Family Members, i.e. spouses, eligible parents etc...

Perhaps UK General Visit visa is what you should be looking at?

EEA FP's are issued FOC, so maybe they've put the junior on it cos it doesn't bring any cash in...

[dude69]

Just working through the new online UK visa system (not for me, for some people I am inviting to visit for a 3-day party, I wanted to test it myself before I told them to apply, applying as family members of EU citizens) at https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk

It's bloody shocking.

Does HM Gov not employ system's analysts, testers, do they literally just stick this tulip online?

Example:

Question: 'Is this your first passport?'
Answer: 'No'

So it adds a grid for 'List your other passports from the last 10 years'

But of course if you've had your current passport for say nine years and the previous one lapsed a couple of years before that then you wouldn't have any others. But if you don't add one, it won't let you submit the application. And it doesn't tell you WHY you can't submit it, it just says 'Personal details section incomplete' Which isn't that helpful when there are are about 50 questions in that section, and no indication of which one is wrong.

The paper form is nice and low-tech and says things like 'Do you have a residence permit for another EEA country, if yes, go to section 9'. The online form doesn't do such logic, and forces you to answer literally dozens of irrelevant and intrusive questions like where you first met your spouse, how many kids they have from a previous marriage, number of previous marriages, and so on.

It seems they've figured out how to ADD optional fields, but they can't remove them. Like they ask 'Is the EEA National currently living in the UK?'. If the answer is 'NO', the paper form says 'skip to the next section'. Online however it continues with 'What is their employment status?', which in fact they don't care about, unless your spouse lives here. But online it doesn't say that, it literally just asks the employment status. So you say 'Employed', which is true - they have a job in Stockholm or wherever it is. So that triggers 'What is your national insurance number'. Which is nonsensical

It says at the top of the screen 'BETA: This is the new UK visa application website. We are testing it. It is designed to make the application process simpler and clearer.' Ah 'beta'. So I sent them my feedback, basically saying that it forces you to answer irrelevant questions and it needs a lot of fixing.

Their reply, in full: 'With regards to your query, if the system requires all part to be completed then they will have to be.'

(I think the uselessness of this reply is influenced by the fact it says 'they aim to reply within 1 day'. Which they did. So they are probably getting paid to reply to 95% or whatever of replies within 24 hours. Which they do, but the replies are then completely useless.)

So that's that really.

It seems like a pretty simple job to me. Take a PDF form:

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...70530/vaf5.pdf

Come up with a simple spec, implement, test, release.

It's pretty much 'online forms 102', they don't have to do advanced systems analysis finding out what data to capture, they just have to turn a paper form featuring neat little boxes into a database and web form.

But it seems like they skipped the spec, and skipped the testing part, and just went straight to 'billing the government millions'.

Anyone worked on something like this with the government? Can you offer a perspective on how they manage to do such a terrible job and not care?