Government website design that is accessible, secure and bilingual

People visit a public sector website because they have to do something: pay, apply, report, check or find out. They are not browsing. Good government website design gets them to the answer or the form quickly, in plain language, on any device, and whatever their ability or first language.

We work with local authorities, municipalities, government agencies, regulators, public health bodies, arm’s-length organisations, universities and publicly funded charities. The work covers content design, the website build, integrations with case management systems, and search visibility.

What does a government website need to do?

A government website needs to let every citizen find accurate information and complete a task first time, without help, whatever device or assistive technology they use. Accessibility, clarity and trust are requirements, not extras.

In practice that means content organised around user needs rather than the internal structure of departments. It means forms that ask one thing at a time, pages written at a reading level the whole public can manage, and a search that returns the right page. It also means publishing an accessibility statement, keeping personal data to a minimum and making the site resilient to attack and traffic spikes.

Where public bodies lose citizens online

When a digital service fails, the cost moves to phone lines, counters and complaints. The failure points are usually familiar.

• Organisation-shaped navigation. Menus mirror departments, so a resident looking for bin collection has to guess which team owns it.
• PDF forms. Downloadable forms are hard to complete on a phone and often inaccessible to screen reader users.
• Jargon and policy language. Pages written for officers rather than the public lead to calls asking what a page means.
• Accessibility debt. Low contrast, missing labels and untagged documents exclude disabled users and create legal exposure.
• Arabic as an afterthought. In the Gulf, a partial or machine-translated Arabic version undermines trust in official information.

How we help government and public sector teams

We start with discovery and user experience design, testing task flows with real residents or service users. Then we deliver website design and development on a maintainable platform. That is often WordPress or a headless CMS, so content teams can publish without a developer and without breaking accessibility.

Technical SEO makes sure official pages outrank unofficial copies and third-party sites charging for free services. We structure content for answer engines, so AI assistants quote your guidance accurately rather than an outdated source. For high-volume enquiries, an assistant can answer routine questions from published content, with clear hand-off to a human. Where you need forms connected to back-office systems, workflow integration routes submissions to the right team.

Features that matter on a government website

• Accessibility aimed at WCAG 2.2 AA, with an accessibility statement and a process for reporting problems.
• Step-by-step online forms that replace PDFs, with save and return where tasks are long.
• Content designed around user needs, with plain-language guidance and clear page ownership.
• Arabic and English with proper right-to-left layout, typography and navigation.
• Integration with identity services such as GOV.UK One Login, Login.gov, Nafath or UAE Pass where appropriate.
• Site search that understands common misspellings and synonyms residents use.
• Security hardening, web application firewall, monitoring and a documented patching routine.
• Open data and document publishing with accessible HTML versions alongside any PDF.
• Consent-aware analytics that measure task completion without tracking individuals.

Government in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, the UK and the US

In Saudi Arabia, the Digital Government Authority (DGA) sets standards for government platforms, and the National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) publishes controls that often apply to public bodies and their suppliers. Arabic comes first, and data residency inside the Kingdom is usually expected. Integration with Nafath for identity is common. We support public sector projects in Riyadh and across the Gulf, including Abu Dhabi, where TDRA and emirate-level digital authorities set their own expectations.

In the UK, the GOV.UK Service Standard and design system are a strong reference point even for bodies outside central government. Public sector accessibility regulations require a published statement. In the US, Section 508 and the ADA shape accessibility, and the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) is widely used by federal agencies. State and county sites often follow similar patterns.

Illustrative scenario: a local authority website rebuild

This is a composite example of a typical project, not a client story. A local authority has a large website that has grown department by department. Many forms are PDFs, the contact centre handles the same questions every day, and an accessibility audit has found repeated failures.

The project starts by ranking the tasks residents come to do. Those tasks get rewritten guidance and online forms that route to the right back-office team. Old pages are retired with redirects, and an accessibility statement is published. A routine enquiries assistant answers from approved content only. The authority then tracks task completion and contact reasons over time, to decide what to fix next.

How much does a government website cost?

A government website typically costs between £8,000 and £90,000, depending on scope. Cost is driven by the number of pages and services, content design effort, integrations with identity and case management systems, bilingual requirements, hosting and security obligations and procurement documentation. A small agency information site sits at the lower end. A full council or authority platform with online services sits at the upper end. See the ranges below and our pricing page. Every engagement gets a fixed quote after scoping, and we can respond to formal tenders.

Next step

Tell us which tasks citizens struggle with and what your platform must meet. We will come back with a scope, a timeline and a fixed price. Book a free consultation, or see how we approach healthcare providers, who share similar accessibility and privacy demands.