This week Wayne, our CIO and resident Arjen Robben look-a-like moved house so needed to update his TV License.
      
This morning he was raving about the TV License website and urged me to take a look. I have to agree that this is probably the best governmental website I have come across.


It has all the classic elements of simplicity and user experience. There’s loads of space, clear calls to action and redundant content has either been removed, hidden or shrunk. I’m a big fan of the design in that it is slick and modern, but degrades nicely across browsers. The two tone buttons, hashed backgrounds and comment shaped title bars seem to be a bit of a vogue lately. My only criticism of the landing page is that I detest stock images with people in them… so lose the lady in her show home bedroom and you’ve got 10 out of 10 from me.

When you get on to renewing or purchasing a license the interface is really neat. There are some nice little touches which make the user experience border on delightful especially for such an uninspiring product. I really like how most forms are pre-populated as much as possible. Most people buying a license will not be sight impared, over 75 or registered students, so these are the default options….

The microcopy is really clear and concise compared to most governmental sites and you can tell this site has had quite a lot of usability testing. One great touch is if you submit a form with empty mandatory fields. The feedback is really helpful – especially bearing in mind the type of users they might get visiting and using the site. As well as getting the missing fields flagged, you get a description of the problem at the top of the form container…..

The site definitely passes the “can my Mother use it” benchmark
I didn’t test the payment section although I’m told it is equally as polished. I couldn’t quite figure out who developed the site, but it appears to be the BBC web team…. In any case, bravo I’m really impressed. A great example of simplicity and surprisingly good UX.