Tom Loosemore

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Changing by doing

Done.

It’s five years since Martha Lane Fox tempted me into digital government. The mission: put the needs of users at the heart of the design of public services. The report we wrote in 2010 was subtitled “Revolution, not evolution.” Martha, we got that bit 100% right. And the conversation inside government has changed. It’s increasingly about the redesign of services centred on the needs of… — read more

Aug 10, 2015
Keynote at the Code For America Summit 2014

Code for America are a fantastic US not for profit, injecting digital thinking into all levels of the US Government through a range of initiatives. For example, they’ve been instrumental in the setting up of the nascent US Digital Service. Last year Mike gave an overview of the UK Government Digital Service at their annual… — read more

Sep 25, 2014
Scotland D14 Conference Talk: Reinvention, not repair

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at the D14 Conference in Glasgow. I had a fine day, going to several interesting workshops, and catching up with old friends from my BBC and Channel 4 days. The speech itself seemed to go ok; the questions were excellent. And in my talk I was invited… — read more

Jun 15, 2014
Webstock 2014 talk: Institutions: An Internet survival guide

Earlier this year I was honoured to be invited to talk at Webstock 14. Webstock is a truly fabulous, unique conference, organised for the pure love of the web, not the money. If you get a chance, go. As a speaker, it was easily the best organised conference I’ve attended, as well as the friendliest. While… — read more

Apr 21, 2014
One link on GOV.UK – 350,000 more organ donors

Last autumn we shared early results of testing various versions of the GOV.UK ‘Thank You’ page. First introduced a year ago, people see this page once they’ve bought their tax disc via GOV.UK. People are generally more open to trying out new stuff after completing a successful transaction, so we’ve been using this page to encourage as… — read more

Mar 18, 2014
Report a misleading website to search engines

Government services have been getting a growing number of complaints from people who feel misled by websites which charge for access to public services that are either free or much cheaper when accessed via the official GOV.UK website. Examples include people trying to renew their passport or driving licence, book a driving test or apply… — read more

Mar 2, 2014
DVLA, we salute you

My first visit to meet DVLA in Swansea back in the summer of 2012 filled me with hope. I met Carolyn Williams MBE, who runs DVLA’s tax disc service. She showed me a wonderfully well-categorised list of feedback sent in by users of her very popular online service; tens of thousands of comments each year.… — read more

Feb 21, 2014
Browser, operating system and screen resolution data for GOV.UK

(Image courtesy of Guy Moorhouse) Earlier this month I dug into the analytics data to better understand what devices people are using when visiting GOV.UK. I thought I’d also quickly share headline data on what browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions we’ve seen over the past month across the whole site. I hope it’s useful. Rank… — read more

Jan 28, 2014
When will more people visit GOV.UK using a mobile or tablet than a PC?

Yesterday the BBC published data showing more people accessing iPlayer via tablet than via computer. This prompted me to update some of the data I gathered for the government’s agreed approach to mobile last this time last year. The objective of the UK government’s digital strategy is to make sure our digital services that are so straightforward and convenient that all… — read more

Jan 8, 2014
Organ donation and A/B testing

Some user needs are easier to meet than others. It doesn’t take much research to confirm that most people searching for ‘bank holiday‘ care most about when they can next enjoy a long weekend. But what if a user needed an organ transplant? Amongst many other priorities, they’d want as many people as possible to… — read more

Aug 6, 2013