In the wake of the Martha Lane Fox strategic review of Directgov the government decided to commission a prototype that explored how a government web site which followed the recommendations in the report might actually work.

Tom Loosemore was appointed to assemble a team to build a prototype, and our own Matt Patterson was asked to join it. He worked alongside a stellar team of GDS staff and contractors and the alpha.gov.uk prototype was delivered in three months, on time and on budget. He continued to work with the team up until his move to Berlin. You can read an overview of the project on the team's blog. Matt wrote a post on that blog about how the team went about designing the technology of the alpha.