Native apps

[christopherthomasdesign]

What

Native mobile apps for government – things like the GOV.UK ID Check app and the HMRC app.

Use this space to share things like:

• any broad design principles you've used when working on apps
• things you've learnt from testing mobile apps with users
• how you've adapted GOV.UK styles to an app context
• any components or patterns that are specific to mobile app context (for example, switching between apps and the web)
• how you think different government apps should relate to one another (for example, naming, scope, icons)

These findings could eventually lead to producing some guidance about designing apps "for GOV.UK".

Why

There are a few UK government apps out there, and they use slightly different approaches. We've also heard from different teams asking if there's any guidance out there for designing government apps. It'd be good to share more of what we've learnt to bring a more consistent user experience to them.

CDDO have committed to creating a mobile app strategy as part of their 2022–25 roadmap for digital and data. This is at a very early stage at the time of writing (March 2023), and we don't know what shape it will take. But anything we gather here can be contributed to that strategy to make sure it reflects the knowledge and experience of teams working on apps.

Examples

• there are 4 central government apps in the Apple app store at the moment: GOV.UK ID Check; HMRC; EU Exit: ID Document Check; UK Immigration: ID Check (we've heard of a few other teams working on apps too)
• the team working on GOV.UK ID Check app created a pattern library for it, we could look into sharing that work

Related links

• the Service Manual is the main existing guidance on building an app, last updated in May 2019