Then there are options for the Apple App Store and also the Google Play Store, with a helpful note: "If you cannot download the app on your phone, you should apply online." Which then has a link to start the online process below.
I was so stunned I was like, surely this must violate some government rule around universal access and service? But I guess not.
What's more, the app is so buggy reddit is filled with support cases of people not being able to complete the process in time and sometimes having to forfeit hundreds of dollars worth of tickets: https://www.reddit.com/r/AusVisa/comments/1jh2olm/having_an_...
The advice literally boils down to, some models of iPhones don't work so go borrow a friend's phone of a different model and pray that they can process your application for you.
The issue is the obvious anti patterns in the following flow. While its not particularly egregious, someone has taken intentional steps to make it convuluted. Engaging with gov services should not feel like trying to unsubscribe from amazon prime:
(article author here): Fair comment, but at least for me the https://www.gov.uk/eta flow still just leads into the double upsell of the mobile app. My problem is more with governments (all of them, this is just one instance) increasingly pushing people to use native Apps and with that to the mercy of Google/Apple.
The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs. Your opinion can vary on if I have succeeded or overshot on that.
FWIW, the online application only allows you to apply for a single person at a time, so for a family of four you need to repeat the whole process (including payment) four times. And the automatic identification of passport and picture does not work very well. And some payments randomly fail.
It is not a very good system. They do seem to respond fast tho!
It's not difficult, however it does violate privacy. It is one more brick in the wall for requiring that all citizens own smartphones. And smartphones themselves are quite bad for privacy. When I frequent a business and they tell me use their smartphone app, my response varies from "no," to "I'm not downloading your fucking app." (depending on how polite the business has been)
100% of smart phone apps are bad. There are NO exceptions to this, by virtue of the fact that you must own and use the smartphone to access them. We stand to lose a lot when we finally lose this fight. (and I'm sure we will)
there's a lot of promoted scam tho on google. This one : https://getetauk.co.uk/fr/ got me when i was a rush at the airport and i paid 125€ for the fucking eta without confirmation
Yeah it's really overblown. I applied for an ETA online last year and it took probably about 15 min from searching for where to do it to the confirmation email dropping in. It was pretty painless, much more so than the ESTA process for travelling to the US&A and even that one isn't particularly difficult.
Did you even read the article and tried going through the process? Suggesting the user to download the app is front and center and the link to apply online is tucked away in a link at the bottom. Not great, but fine, I'll live with that. But that's not the end is it? The user clicks continue online application, then why does it still give you another screen nudging you towards using the app? Making users feel like they are doing something wrong by not using the app.
After I got Indefinite Leave to Remain (permanent settled status) in the UK, I had to buy a new phone that had NFC, because the new eVisa system required me to scan the chip in my passport to link it to the system. In general, the UK retains its mildly chaotic character - the 'disorderly order' that Kate Fox frequently mentions in her book Watching the English - but the immigration system is very much being tightened up due to political sentiment.
As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
I would half like to move back to the UK, but I'm terribly worried that after jumping through all the hoops so that my EU citizen partner could come with us and be a part our children's lives that Reform would get in and throw out all the "undesirables" (basically anyone without a British Passport at first, sure they won't stop there). I'm really not sure how likely them attaining power is, but it sure looks like a terrible but possible future from afar. :(
> As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
They might tell you that, but that does not mean its true. IMO they do not care about dependence on American services. It is very much Somebody Else's Problem.
You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen.
On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle...
It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do.
Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before.
(There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport).
And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.
Some British women now find themselves in a Kafkaesque situation where the UK home office refuses to renew or grant them a UK passport, because their foreign passport is under a different name. (Greece and Spain are mentioned in [1], but I know people in France affected by this)
Where previously these women could at least travel to their birth country to visit dying relatives on their foreign passport, they are now locked out waiting two months for a £600 entitlement certificate. Meanwhile, non-British visitors can just pay £16 for an ETA on this whizzy app.
eg South Africa allows dual but you’re not allowed to use the other passport at border or within country.
I can kinda understand it from give perspective. Harder to track people when they switch constantly. People flying in on one passport and out with the other etc
Most countries require their own dual-nationality citizens to enter on their local passports not foreign ones, Britain was an exception before. It's not unreasonable to ask for the British passport, and I say this as someone affected.
Small point, if you're traveling from republic of Ireland you don't practically need a passport or an ETA, you can just drive over the invisible border
Why does the title say "You better have a ... account" when the end of the article is literally a link to the form which does not require an account? I agree that the UI here is bad, but I feel like the title is just misrepresenting the content of the article.
(article author here): It's over the top from my annoyed reaction when I encountered the clickthrough. I am mostly annoyed at how much EU governments keep pushing native apps for government services, thus making them dependent on Google/Apple. The fallback exists here, but it is very much not what you are encouraged to use.
I agree though that the title is too much and less funny in retrospect, I wish I chose a more tame one. Humorous annoyance on personal blog posts translates badly to submissions here.
It's ok, many flights from Europe are on budget carriers that require the installation of their app in place of printed boarding passes, so this isn't really an issue.
/s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.
Generally speaking you can use the mobile website and add the QR based boarding pass to Google Wallet that way - but if you dig into the TOS you'll almost certainly find an alternative way to get a printed pass.
For example Ryanair, who went 'fully digital' last year and stopped accepting self-printed passes, will provide a free of charge boarding pass at the airport so long as you have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport.
I've seen that once and you could just enter the booking ID in the boarding pass collection terminals and they scan that QR code instead of the one on the app.
This stuff isn't as rigid as they make it out to be.
I've flown with many European budget carriers and have never once seen this requirement. Sure, they might charge for or not provide printed boarding passes, but they've always sent me a PDF or PNG boarding pass by e-mail or provided one through their website. That, in my book, is a non-issue. Forcing an app is a huge issue, and shouldn't be legal if the only reasonable way to get the app is agreeing to the draconian conditions of one of two gatekeeping companies subject to foreign jurisdictions.
The thing about mobile apps is that majority of people likely prefer it.
Native apps make it much smoother (or just possible at all / with much lower friction) than webapps to do things like taking photos, scanning NFC, doing payments etc. (which the visa apps are doing)
Apps are also natural "storage point" for data, and a "bookmark on the phone" (the latter is partly due to vendors not making it easy to add non-apps to your home page on the phone).
As much as I hate the push to apps for things like Reddit for monetisation purposes (and I don't install such apps), in many cases for specialized apps the experience is actually much better in the app.
And as you can read in op's article, there's a web fallback possible.
The main drawback for me is that apps take 100s of MBs those days.
Use of an app is not necessarily the problem. Requiring Google Play or the App Store is. We should be able to use apps without being in walled gardens.
More and more things require a Google-certified Android phone (and will not work with jailbroken/rooted phones, unlocked bootloader, and so one : banking apps of course, but also medical apps (e.g. Doctolib in France), ID apps (e.g. France identité), and a lot more. This "digital sovereignity" hype makes me laugh since in practice government apps are literally enforcing Google locks, effectively excluding people using LineageOS/MicroG and other similar open roms.
It's a quite straightforward use - few minutes, it uses NFC to the passport, it's very organized and well guided... except
you can use only one bank card per person - the payment would be rejected w/o any reason given, so going through the process few times to no avail. Getting visas for the family would require multiple bank cards.
Hey some minister signed off a multimillion pound deal to get that app developed (to a firm that definitely no one in his family or business circles has stakes in), so we better get our money's worth!
In all seriousness this is likely the exact scenario here. Same thing with covid track and trace and p much any current government it contract. Minister receives backhand to push through overpriced underbaked tech solution (when existing solution was ok, and probably just needed improving over replacing). Then to avoid ministerial embarrassment and too much financial scrutiny, civil service must bend over backwards to improve uptake of new solution. Love living in Victorian Britain tbh.
On the other hand, Indians are rejoicing that this might actually be much easier for us. We will still be going through the Visa Application, but we will get the digital version of the e-visa (I read that a physical copy can also be printed).
In all fairness, based on my interactions with Visa Applications, the UK government website is the best so far. I love their Design Systems, consistency, and UX predictability.
https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply also follows the same design language. I’d happier facing this one than many others.
We had a nice family vacation last year in the UK (beach town in Wales). One day, we wanted to make reservations in a restaurant just a few blocks away. This was only possible by calling them. They asked for my phone number, then replied: "Sorry, is this a UK number?" When I said no, we are tourists here, the reply was that they could not make reservations for us, sorry! Same experience with two other restaurants.
We ended up preparing some hamburgers from Aldi UK that evening.
Glad to see this posted - I have a UK trip coming up in a few months, and as a conscientious objector to the smartphone duopoly, this article will save me some irritation.
Visited the UK recently and had to obviously go through the same thing; had to click "I just want to use the online thing" 3 times. Was very frustrating.
Someone else commented on this already, but I had to fly Ryan Air while I was there and after booking the tickets, I found out that the only way to get a boarding pass is by installing their app.
A related thing that bugs me is how many scam search results come up and are prioritised if you search for "uk eta" or similar. On google for me the real site is sandwiched in positon 4 after 3 and before 2 additional paid sponsored scam sites each with large block sections in the search results.
Scammers pay the the same good money for advertising space as legitimate companies. Google can profit from it, so there's no incentive to kick bad actors of their advertising platform.
Does the UK force you to disclose years worth of private messaging and social media history at the immigration checkpoint? If not, no American should be opining about this.
Aside from this app issue there's another instance of bloody minded bureacracy that affects dual citizens:
As a dual citizen living outside the UK, to visit Britain I cannot apply for an ETA. Instead I must have a British passport, OR apply for a waiver document for an eye watering £500.
Obviously this makes no sense, because if the ETA is suitable for a non-British citizen it ought to be fine for a British citizen who happens to have a non-British passport, but objections have all received non-answer-answers that strongly suggest the bureaucrats didn't think of it and can't be bothered to implement support for the situation.
if you enter a country whose citizenship you have you must always enter with the travel document or proof of citizenship of that country. no exceptions. that is a global convention. using a foreign document is most likely a violation of the law. (there may be exceptions in some countries that don't issue passports abroad).
that waiver document is ridiculous though. what does it cost to get a new passport at a british embassy? as a german i can get a temporary passport within a day at any german embassy for about 30€ or 60€. enough to travel back home.
My wife moved to Belgium for me 8 years ago and also has dual citizenship. She assumed it would be fine to travel on Belgium passport + ETA but that's not allowed.
She also had to go through a very expensive process to renew her British passport last minute.
I have seen this complaint a lot but I think it is misplaced because it is frankly common sense to keep an update-to-date passport of the country you are a citizen of... People will have to apply for a passport and be done with it, nothing to see here...
Also, I suppose that the complaint comes only from people who live in countries that have visa-free travel to the UK and/or EU countries and who were just saving a little/money hassle otherwise they would already have an up-to-date British passport.
Wallet codes bought at local monetary terminals to increase the balance of an account seems to be the less too much 'insecure' way to do things and to stay away from a hard dependency on whatng cartel web engines.
The gov.uk designs are usually good, but this one... I had friend coming to visit from overseas and they were unable to fill it in. It's too confusing. So the visit is postponed.
I am the author and I love the UK, am sad about you leaving, and I am as angry about similar practices in EU countries. My gripe is with the pushing of foreign controlled apps, not the immigration rules.
I even got flak in this discussion for referring to the UK government multiple times as "EU government" because I can not let go :(.
I feel like this is so much of an overreaction to a non-issue.
The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. It’s a few clicks and one page digests of your options.
It’s a decision tree to let most people in the world who have either an Android or iOS device easily submit their form quickly, or just proceed with the guidance to just apply online (your preference obviously).
There should always be web fallbacks for those opposed to smartphones or unable to use them. Insisting the elderly use them for any type of bureaucratic flow results too often in stress and confusion.
>The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. I
I think that about a lot of the cancellation flows posted on here that people consider "dark patterns". Skip an upsell or two, decline a pause offer, bam, cancellation page.
This is an insane take. Apple and Google both reserve the right to deny accounts to people without any legal appeal at worst. At best, a legal dispute would have to be resolved in US courts. How other countries (including my own) accept that as a condition to use public services is beyond belief, and pointing this out is not an overreaction.
Why are we willingly placing private companies – private companies subject to foreign jurisdictions, even! – in the role of gatekeepers of public services? We have surely completely lost our minds!
> Can you spot where you would find alternatives to using the app on this page?
I mean it's literally a page of guidance for using the app so it's not really that surprising that there isn't a direct heading saying "how to not use the app" and that the link for not using it is under the bit about having problems.
Also, the author here isn't looking at the ETA main page, they're looking specifically at the _help page for the app_ which, yes, talks about the app (but tells you that you can apply online if it doesn't work).
(article author here): The big green "Start Now" button on https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply takes me to the same double push-for-the-app flow in the article (on desktop firefox). But otherwise true, should probably have searched for "UK ETA", but coming from the announcement, that is very clear you need the app, searching for "UK ETA App" felt natural.
No worries! The UK government has, just like all EU governments, announced again and again how they're going to become completely independent of US and China. Software. Hardware. Everything. This is just yet another example of that.
(another example of this is that you cannot submit your taxes or do anything even slightly weird in relation to city hall in France or Belgium without Ios or Android) (needed for identification)
This is the combination of 2 effects: You CAN go to city hall or the tax office and identify yourself there without a phone (for now). However, for many not-quite-the-most-normal-thing-ever-stuff like birth certificate, past-years-how-much-tax-you-paid certificate, ... they no longer staff city hall or the tax office for these things. People working there now have only the most minimal knowledge of procedures. Hence you cannot go there for most things, you must do them remotely. Only really common stuff. To identify yourself remotely, you need Apple or Android. So you can go down and get a domicile certificate, but not, say a birth certificate or a "I'm safe to work with kids" certificate, or ... they no longer let you do this. The fucking constitution and god knows how many laws clearly state they MUST allow you to do that there and cannot ask for things like a phone, but they don't let you anyway.
I must say I wonder how this works for people who can't or won't do that ... say unemployed, or people in prison, or ...
I mean this means they must allow mobile phones in prison now, for example, doesn't it? In hospitals, including psychiatric. Or on any secret military facilities where people sleep, like ships or subs. Or, at least, sooner or later some judge will be forced to tell them to allow it.
It just seems so stupid to do this for a great many reasons, not just that this gives Trump a way to shut down the EU economy. But, as usual, saving a quick buck clearly matters more to politicians than little details like people, or security.
(author here): Is this in agreement with the article? It reads like you want it to be a gotcha?
A government requiring emails and then giving complete control of the email infrastructure to two US companies (Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Outlook) would be exactly what I was trying to write about.
You joke, but this is something of a concern now that self hosting email is quite difficult (both for incoming spam and getting blocked as a spammer yourself).
gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old. It's often 2-4 clicks to get to the /actual/ thing you want, with many long pages of "ok here's what this thing is. Here's what will happen next".
(Even that 'direct link' has a whole page of "ok here's what you need - click to continue" !)
So this isn't really an exception, and is to be expected if you're familiar with govuk
I think it needs to be scaled back, but with a party in power famous for paternalism, and a long history of their interaction design in this direction, I don't see it happening
gov.uk has a tendancy to treat everyone like a 5 year old
Which is not a bug, but a feature of the gov.uk website, and it's the best and the most important one. 89 year old you would absolutely appreciate it when you'd need to renew your passport via gov.uk.
They call it content design [1] and I love it! I've lived in a few countries, and gov.uk is by far the easiest way to interact with the government that I've experienced. As an immigrant, it can be confusing to navigate a new country's legal idiosyncrasies, so I appreciate them dumbing it down for me.
Although, I'll have to admit it's been getting worse lately. My latest annoyance is the "GOV.UK One Login" they introduced in addition to the existing "Government Gateway" login. I never know which I'm supposed to use on which page, and some pages accept either. Not great UX.
This feels super unfair to the gov.uk experience design which for me stands out head and shoulders above any other web workflow delivered by the public sector I've ever come across.
Pages are snappy, terse, consistent, clear and unsurprising. I agree this specific example feels a bit dark-patterny and occasionally stuff like self-assesment can have more steps than necessary, but overall it's really high quality.
In comparison the process for getting a DUNS number felt like going through some kind of a psychological experiment.
Finally, this:
> a party in power famous for paternalism
is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.
Congratulations, you're a lot smarter than the average person. I understand this is sometimes a bit annoying, but at the end of the day it's probably something to be grateful for.
Awful take. Other than the broken mess that is One Login the whole gov.uk setup is a breath of fresh air compared to most countries online government services.
It's incredibly hard to cater for a wide audience, and they do it pretty damn well. Just because you fit in the "I know what I'm doing category" it doesn't mean they should strip away all the bits that help those not in that category.
I’m sorry but this is an awful take. gov.uk’s design is excellent, probably the best government interface in the world. My friends from other European countries are literally shocked at how easy things are to do (often, tasks that in their countries would require going to some bureaucrat _in person_ and waiting hours, sometimes multiple times).
The reason the ETA app exists is because the web is a terrible platform for doing this stuff on. The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc.
The web is not a panacea. All the above is a hack job if you do it there. But there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Hell I just googled it and it went straight to the page.
> The ETA app gives you fast feedback on whether or not photos that you need to provide are any good, handles state, retries, talks to the NFC in your passport, handles long running workflows and validation etc.
Apart from NFC all of that can be handled by a 1990s PHP application.
> The web is not a panacea but there is still the backup option which was clearly found.
Where by "clearly" you mean "multiple clicks to get there while being aggressively upselled the app like it was a commercial website".
There is no need for the ETA app, you should just come to the passport check, a guy there would check the passport, and you'd enter, like we used to do for decades pretty much everywhere.
As somebody who JUST got the UK ETA recently (~2 weeks ago), I can talk about my experience.
Basically, as a US Citizen, even though I will only be transiting via the shthole of an airport (LHR, obviously), I need this ETA.
The process seemed* painless when described, but is rather painful. Essentially, they WANT you to use the mobile app. They do everything to make that happen (unless you are applying for someone else, in which case you may use your PC/laptop).
So I downloaded the iOS app; you have to take a selfie (so, obviously, as well lit place, neutral background, etc etc). The selfie itself took a few tries. Then you pay GBP 16 (USD ~21).
Then, the worst experience was matching the NFC-enabled US passport with the app, so that it reads the stored info from the passport chip. My US passport is recent (renewed within last 6 months). Try as I might, I just couldn't get the app to "read" the NFC-stored info (on the back cover of the passport). I tried 15 times, with the passport held at various angles, touching the iPhone here and there. It worked on the 16th try (= the passport backcover has to be held EXACTLY halfway down).
"You are holding it wrong" x 10000
I almost gave up half way thru this extremely frustrating @#$@@!!!! experience. Even as I write this I am cursing the app developers.
I can only imagine how somebody else -- say a senior citizen, who may not know tech enough, or whose fingers are not nimble enough, etc -- can easily give up this process after just a couple of tries. The usability experience is just plain shitty. Think about the consequences.
I hope the app developers are reading this.
I'm just glad I dont have to do this for 2 more years.
chrishannah|3 days ago
You can search "UK ETA", find the main page: https://www.gov.uk/eta
Then click "Apply for an ETA" and you're brought to this page: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply
Then there are options for the Apple App Store and also the Google Play Store, with a helpful note: "If you cannot download the app on your phone, you should apply online." Which then has a link to start the online process below.
shalmanese|3 days ago
I was so stunned I was like, surely this must violate some government rule around universal access and service? But I guess not.
What's more, the app is so buggy reddit is filled with support cases of people not being able to complete the process in time and sometimes having to forfeit hundreds of dollars worth of tickets: https://www.reddit.com/r/AusVisa/comments/1jh2olm/having_an_...
The advice literally boils down to, some models of iPhones don't work so go borrow a friend's phone of a different model and pray that they can process your application for you.
ozlikethewizard|3 days ago
Go to https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply
Click "Start Now" under apply online section (that is distinct from the app section)
Get taken to page saying to get the app, scroll to bottom and click small link "I cannot apply on the app"
Get taken to a help getting the app page, scroll to the bottom and click small link "Continue application online"
Finally be in right place
rhazn|3 days ago
The article is definitely a bit over the top, it is just my personal blog and me trying to write a bit more funny to counter the bland LLMs. Your opinion can vary on if I have succeeded or overshot on that.
riffraff|3 days ago
It is not a very good system. They do seem to respond fast tho!
everdrive|3 days ago
100% of smart phone apps are bad. There are NO exceptions to this, by virtue of the fact that you must own and use the smartphone to access them. We stand to lose a lot when we finally lose this fight. (and I'm sure we will)
nixass|3 days ago
HelloUsername|3 days ago
CGamesPlay|3 days ago
Symbiote|3 days ago
The "Start now" button ought to skip all that.
davidguetta|3 days ago
mstade|3 days ago
sylware|3 days ago
Fervicus|3 days ago
cjs_ac|3 days ago
As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.
richrichardsson|3 days ago
red_admiral|3 days ago
graemep|3 days ago
They might tell you that, but that does not mean its true. IMO they do not care about dependence on American services. It is very much Somebody Else's Problem.
unknown|3 days ago
[deleted]
miohtama|3 days ago
Generally, this is called a vassal state. Better to keep overlords happy.
jacquesm|3 days ago
They'd tell you that, but they would be lying.
gertrunde|3 days ago
You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen.
On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle...
It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do.
Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before.
(There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport).
And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.
dtf|3 days ago
Where previously these women could at least travel to their birth country to visit dying relatives on their foreign passport, they are now locked out waiting two months for a £600 entitlement certificate. Meanwhile, non-British visitors can just pay £16 for an ETA on this whizzy app.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/16/border-rule...
andsoitis|3 days ago
This is a pretty common practice for most countries.
Havoc|3 days ago
eg South Africa allows dual but you’re not allowed to use the other passport at border or within country.
I can kinda understand it from give perspective. Harder to track people when they switch constantly. People flying in on one passport and out with the other etc
xnorswap|3 days ago
ludicrousdispla|3 days ago
extraduder_ire|3 days ago
bdbdbdb|3 days ago
danlitt|3 days ago
rhazn|3 days ago
I agree though that the title is too much and less funny in retrospect, I wish I chose a more tame one. Humorous annoyance on personal blog posts translates badly to submissions here.
upofadown|3 days ago
detritus|3 days ago
/s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.
piltdownman|3 days ago
For example Ryanair, who went 'fully digital' last year and stopped accepting self-printed passes, will provide a free of charge boarding pass at the airport so long as you have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport.
dgxyz|3 days ago
This stuff isn't as rigid as they make it out to be.
gspr|3 days ago
anal_reactor|3 days ago
jakub_g|3 days ago
Native apps make it much smoother (or just possible at all / with much lower friction) than webapps to do things like taking photos, scanning NFC, doing payments etc. (which the visa apps are doing)
Apps are also natural "storage point" for data, and a "bookmark on the phone" (the latter is partly due to vendors not making it easy to add non-apps to your home page on the phone).
As much as I hate the push to apps for things like Reddit for monetisation purposes (and I don't install such apps), in many cases for specialized apps the experience is actually much better in the app.
And as you can read in op's article, there's a web fallback possible.
The main drawback for me is that apps take 100s of MBs those days.
survirtual|2 days ago
karteum|3 days ago
patrakov|3 days ago
xxs|3 days ago
you can use only one bank card per person - the payment would be rejected w/o any reason given, so going through the process few times to no avail. Getting visas for the family would require multiple bank cards.
Timshel|3 days ago
ozlikethewizard|3 days ago
In all seriousness this is likely the exact scenario here. Same thing with covid track and trace and p much any current government it contract. Minister receives backhand to push through overpriced underbaked tech solution (when existing solution was ok, and probably just needed improving over replacing). Then to avoid ministerial embarrassment and too much financial scrutiny, civil service must bend over backwards to improve uptake of new solution. Love living in Victorian Britain tbh.
Brajeshwar|3 days ago
In all fairness, based on my interactions with Visa Applications, the UK government website is the best so far. I love their Design Systems, consistency, and UX predictability.
https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply also follows the same design language. I’d happier facing this one than many others.
lqet|3 days ago
We had a nice family vacation last year in the UK (beach town in Wales). One day, we wanted to make reservations in a restaurant just a few blocks away. This was only possible by calling them. They asked for my phone number, then replied: "Sorry, is this a UK number?" When I said no, we are tourists here, the reply was that they could not make reservations for us, sorry! Same experience with two other restaurants.
We ended up preparing some hamburgers from Aldi UK that evening.
dwroberts|3 days ago
null_deref|3 days ago
Ylpertnodi|3 days ago
Apofis|3 days ago
marssaxman|3 days ago
headsman771|3 days ago
unknown|3 days ago
[deleted]
pmontra|3 days ago
xxs|3 days ago
edtech_dev|3 days ago
Someone else commented on this already, but I had to fly Ryan Air while I was there and after booking the tickets, I found out that the only way to get a boarding pass is by installing their app.
It's quite bleak.
dzdt|3 days ago
BLKNSLVR|3 days ago
jacquesm|3 days ago
dcminter|3 days ago
I miss the good old green Visa Waiver forms that we had to illegibly scribble on during the flight over :)
paxys|3 days ago
dcminter|3 days ago
As a dual citizen living outside the UK, to visit Britain I cannot apply for an ETA. Instead I must have a British passport, OR apply for a waiver document for an eye watering £500.
Obviously this makes no sense, because if the ETA is suitable for a non-British citizen it ought to be fine for a British citizen who happens to have a non-British passport, but objections have all received non-answer-answers that strongly suggest the bureaucrats didn't think of it and can't be bothered to implement support for the situation.
I hate paperwork...
em-bee|3 days ago
that waiver document is ridiculous though. what does it cost to get a new passport at a british embassy? as a german i can get a temporary passport within a day at any german embassy for about 30€ or 60€. enough to travel back home.
noroot|3 days ago
She also had to go through a very expensive process to renew her British passport last minute.
Silly system.
mytailorisrich|3 days ago
Also, I suppose that the complaint comes only from people who live in countries that have visa-free travel to the UK and/or EU countries and who were just saving a little/money hassle otherwise they would already have an up-to-date British passport.
oliwarner|3 days ago
I get the annoyance of being asked multiple times, but it's not that bad.
sylware|3 days ago
varispeed|3 days ago
deafpolygon|3 days ago
librasteve|3 days ago
- a remainer
rhazn|3 days ago
I even got flak in this discussion for referring to the UK government multiple times as "EU government" because I can not let go :(.
NoImmatureAdHom|3 days ago
testfrequency|3 days ago
The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. It’s a few clicks and one page digests of your options.
It’s a decision tree to let most people in the world who have either an Android or iOS device easily submit their form quickly, or just proceed with the guidance to just apply online (your preference obviously).
squidbeak|3 days ago
drstewart|3 days ago
I think that about a lot of the cancellation flows posted on here that people consider "dark patterns". Skip an upsell or two, decline a pause offer, bam, cancellation page.
gspr|3 days ago
Why are we willingly placing private companies – private companies subject to foreign jurisdictions, even! – in the role of gatekeepers of public services? We have surely completely lost our minds!
koakuma-chan|3 days ago
nobodyandproud|3 days ago
IanCal|2 days ago
I mean it's literally a page of guidance for using the app so it's not really that surprising that there isn't a direct heading saying "how to not use the app" and that the link for not using it is under the bit about having problems.
red_admiral|3 days ago
If you visit the gov.uk page from a mobile, you get a suggestion for the app.
If you visit on _desktop_, you get https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply ( reached from https://www.gov.uk/eta ) which offers app and online (browser) options just beneath each other.
Also, the author here isn't looking at the ETA main page, they're looking specifically at the _help page for the app_ which, yes, talks about the app (but tells you that you can apply online if it doesn't work).
rhazn|3 days ago
ale42|3 days ago
eqvinox|3 days ago
And if my device doesn't have a camera I don't need to scan my face? wtf?
register|3 days ago
spwa4|3 days ago
(another example of this is that you cannot submit your taxes or do anything even slightly weird in relation to city hall in France or Belgium without Ios or Android) (needed for identification)
This is the combination of 2 effects: You CAN go to city hall or the tax office and identify yourself there without a phone (for now). However, for many not-quite-the-most-normal-thing-ever-stuff like birth certificate, past-years-how-much-tax-you-paid certificate, ... they no longer staff city hall or the tax office for these things. People working there now have only the most minimal knowledge of procedures. Hence you cannot go there for most things, you must do them remotely. Only really common stuff. To identify yourself remotely, you need Apple or Android. So you can go down and get a domicile certificate, but not, say a birth certificate or a "I'm safe to work with kids" certificate, or ... they no longer let you do this. The fucking constitution and god knows how many laws clearly state they MUST allow you to do that there and cannot ask for things like a phone, but they don't let you anyway.
I must say I wonder how this works for people who can't or won't do that ... say unemployed, or people in prison, or ...
I mean this means they must allow mobile phones in prison now, for example, doesn't it? In hospitals, including psychiatric. Or on any secret military facilities where people sleep, like ships or subs. Or, at least, sooner or later some judge will be forced to tell them to allow it.
It just seems so stupid to do this for a great many reasons, not just that this gives Trump a way to shut down the EU economy. But, as usual, saving a quick buck clearly matters more to politicians than little details like people, or security.
Oras|3 days ago
rhazn|3 days ago
A government requiring emails and then giving complete control of the email infrastructure to two US companies (Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Outlook) would be exactly what I was trying to write about.
georgefrowny|3 days ago
GuestFAUniverse|3 days ago
arrowsmith|3 days ago
mdcurran|3 days ago
mm0lqf|3 days ago
pixelesque|3 days ago
swarnie|3 days ago
USA, Canada, Australia all have a small fee to process a visa. Some even have tourist/hotel taxes if you really want to get a huff on.
xelaboi|3 days ago
gib444|3 days ago
(Even that 'direct link' has a whole page of "ok here's what you need - click to continue" !)
So this isn't really an exception, and is to be expected if you're familiar with govuk
I think it needs to be scaled back, but with a party in power famous for paternalism, and a long history of their interaction design in this direction, I don't see it happening
smikhanov|3 days ago
NicuCalcea|3 days ago
Although, I'll have to admit it's been getting worse lately. My latest annoyance is the "GOV.UK One Login" they introduced in addition to the existing "Government Gateway" login. I never know which I'm supposed to use on which page, and some pages accept either. Not great UX.
1: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design
robbbbbbbbbbbb|3 days ago
Pages are snappy, terse, consistent, clear and unsurprising. I agree this specific example feels a bit dark-patterny and occasionally stuff like self-assesment can have more steps than necessary, but overall it's really high quality.
In comparison the process for getting a DUNS number felt like going through some kind of a psychological experiment.
Finally, this:
> a party in power famous for paternalism
is just enclowning yourself with a partisan and non-sequitous point.
__jonas|3 days ago
I’ve had only good experiences with gov.uk while I was living there, It’s significantly better than my home country’s digital infrastructure.
michh|3 days ago
esskay|3 days ago
It's incredibly hard to cater for a wide audience, and they do it pretty damn well. Just because you fit in the "I know what I'm doing category" it doesn't mean they should strip away all the bits that help those not in that category.
oncallthrow|3 days ago
dgxyz|3 days ago
The web is not a panacea. All the above is a hack job if you do it there. But there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Hell I just googled it and it went straight to the page.
troupo|3 days ago
Apart from NFC all of that can be handled by a 1990s PHP application.
> The web is not a panacea but there is still the backup option which was clearly found.
Where by "clearly" you mean "multiple clicks to get there while being aggressively upselled the app like it was a commercial website".
unknown|3 days ago
[deleted]
ajsnigrutin|3 days ago
aanet|3 days ago
Basically, as a US Citizen, even though I will only be transiting via the shthole of an airport (LHR, obviously), I need this ETA.
The process seemed* painless when described, but is rather painful. Essentially, they WANT you to use the mobile app. They do everything to make that happen (unless you are applying for someone else, in which case you may use your PC/laptop).
So I downloaded the iOS app; you have to take a selfie (so, obviously, as well lit place, neutral background, etc etc). The selfie itself took a few tries. Then you pay GBP 16 (USD ~21).
Then, the worst experience was matching the NFC-enabled US passport with the app, so that it reads the stored info from the passport chip. My US passport is recent (renewed within last 6 months). Try as I might, I just couldn't get the app to "read" the NFC-stored info (on the back cover of the passport). I tried 15 times, with the passport held at various angles, touching the iPhone here and there. It worked on the 16th try (= the passport backcover has to be held EXACTLY halfway down).
"You are holding it wrong" x 10000
I almost gave up half way thru this extremely frustrating @#$@@!!!! experience. Even as I write this I am cursing the app developers.
I can only imagine how somebody else -- say a senior citizen, who may not know tech enough, or whose fingers are not nimble enough, etc -- can easily give up this process after just a couple of tries. The usability experience is just plain shitty. Think about the consequences.
I hope the app developers are reading this.
I'm just glad I dont have to do this for 2 more years.
jamespo|3 days ago
klausa|3 days ago