The UK Government has refused to release any research or work-in-progress designs related to the recent brand refresh of GOV.UK.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has rejected a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from designer Matt Eason, who was curious to see how the new branding was developed.
He asked to see audience and user research, initial concepts, in-progress designs, and, “any documents, reports or presentations showing the progress of the rebrand, including the GOV.UK logo and wider design language.”
In March last year, the Government Digital Service (GDS) which oversees GOV.UK, awarded a £100,000 contract to user-experience firm Lnet, to provide “research and insight that will inform the development of a new brand identity for GOV.UK.”
It then worked with ad agency M+C Saatchi on the brand refresh, which was tasked with appealing to “the broadest possible audience” across the website, the new GOV.UK app and social media channels.
The project was reported to cost £532,000 and the DSIT published new brand guidelines for GOV.UK in June.
”As we increase the number of places that people meet GOV.UK… we need our brand identity to do more,” the new guidelines explain.
“It needs to be able to compete for attention in busy environments like social media, be equipped to come to life when used in formats including video, while remaining approachable and welcoming for all the people we serve.”
As part of the new identity, the dot in the wordmark moved up off the baseline to make the name look less like a web address, and it was used more broadly as a graphic device across different channels, as a “guiding hand.”
The new guidelines also confirmed the use of primary blue and accent teal as the “core brand colours.”
While the brand refresh – and its cost – received predictable mockery in the right-wing media, Eason’s FOI request is about professional interest.
“It’s not meant to be a gotcha, I’m genuinely curious,” he explains.
Eason is head of design at Fivium, a software company that works with GOV.UK services, and he has implemented some of the new branding across various projects.
“I am really interested to see what the process was from a user-sensitive design point of view,” he says.
“What was the research that pointed to the existing brand not working well for some people? Why did they think that it had room for improvement? What were the different iterations and did they go a bit more wild and wacky with it, because obviously the new logo is fairly similar to the old logo?”
“Is it effective in solving the problems that it was designed to solve? That’s why I want to see the research.”
Eason says he thought it was “a fairly uncontroversial request.” But the DSIT disagreed.
In its reasons for withholding the information, it cites the risks of “premature disclosure” whereby people might, “misinterpret incomplete or preliminary information, leading to unnecessary speculation and concern.”
It also said that, “Ministers and officials require a safe space to discuss and consider strategies that may lead to formal policies without external pressure. Disclosure could inhibit free and frank discussions, leading to less effective policymaking.”
Finally the ministry said some information was already in the public domain, referring to the brand guidelines.
Eason believes the refusal to share the documentation is a missed opportunity to understand how this ambitious government design project played out as a process.
“It’s a very unique brand because it’s meant for almost everyone,” Eason says. “There’s obviously some research that shows it wasn’t trusted enough amongst some areas of the population. It would be really interesting to see why that was, so it could feed into other areas.”
And he thinks that showing “all the thought and care that went into it” might blunt some of the criticism of the project.
But above all, he is frustrated that the decision goes against one of the GDS’ Government Design Principles, which states, “Make things open: it makes things better.”
“We should share what we’re doing whenever we can,” the principles say. “With colleagues, with users, with the world. Share code, share designs, share ideas, share intentions, share failures.”
This idea is re-iterated on the official Design in government blog, whose boilerplate reads, “We believe working in the open makes things better.” Its newsletter is called Open Notes.
Writing on LinkedIn, strategist Adrie van der Luijt was one of several people who echoed Eason’s dismay at the decision.
“The GDS has a long track record of publishing design decisions, user research, even rejected concepts,” he wrote. “That openness has earned trust. It also clearly informs the work of anyone who contributes to GOV.UK and GOV.UK-inspired services.
“If there’s research backing it, let’s see it. If not, we deserve to ask why public money was spent on something so user-facing, with so little transparency.”
The most in-depth context around the brand refresh was published by a frontend developer on the GOV.UK Design System team, who blogs as beeps.
It explains that user research found that many younger people saw GOV.UK as “monolithic, unfriendly, and even intimidating” and points out that the new logo was “just square one of a process that’s going to continue for many more months.”
The article also mounts a robust defence of the money spent on the project, in response to headlines like that in The Daily Mail, which screamed, “Absolutely dotty! Government blows over half a million on ‘vanity’ makeover for website which involved moving a full stop.”
“This perspective only focuses on the logo, and completely ignores the other additions to the brand that are being introduced over time,” beeps writes.
“It ignores that everything was tested, prototyped, refined, and tested again dozens of times with members of the public. It might not be obvious from a single side-by-side graphic, but a lot of time went into interrogating what we had and experimenting with what could be added.
“It was the full-time salaried efforts of dozens of design, development, and delivery specialists for more than a year. By that metric, it’s actually quite cheap.”
Eason plans to appeal the DSIT decision. He says he’s got used to the new designs, although he doesn’t actually think that’s important.
“Personally I like the blue, but I’m not keen on the dot,” he says. “But overall, I don’t really care what my personal feeling about it is. Is it effective in solving the problems that it was designed to solve? That’s why I want to see the research.”
The DSIT did not respond to a request for comment.