Case Study: Government Digital Service improves GOV.UK search and user experience with Softwire

Government Digital Service reduces GOV.UK search exits by 200,000 a year with Softwire

The Government Digital Service (GDS) faced the challenge of ensuring the GOV.UK website, the UK government's public portal, was easy to navigate so citizens could find official information. To complement its in-house team, GDS engaged the vendor Softwire to help improve the site's search and overall user experience.

Softwire provided digital engineers who worked on redesigning navigation, displaying information, and building new pages. They implemented a rigorous A/B testing framework and helped evolve the GOV.UK search engine. This work decreased search exit rates by an estimated 200,000 per year and increased the number of results clicked by around 1.17 million annually. The successful collaboration expanded, with Softwire engineers also contributing to the development of the GOV.UK Verify identity tool and providing round-the-clock support.

Government Digital Service