Pages

Service unavailable pages

This guidance is for government teams that build online services. To find information and services for the public, go to GOV.UK.

WCAG 2.2

New WCAG 2.2 criteria affect this pattern

To use ‘Service unavailable pages’ and meet the new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 criteria, make sure that users can successfully:

See the full list of components and patterns affected by WCAG 2.2.

Tell the user a service is unavailable on purpose. These are also known as 503 and shutter pages.

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When to use this pattern

Use a service unavailable page when a service has been closed on purpose. This could be for a specific period of time or permanently.

If there is a problem with the service, use a there is a problem with the service page.

Have a general page in case you need to close a service and do not have time to update the page. As soon as you know when the service will be available, update the page.

How it works

The page should have:

• ‘Sorry, the service is unavailable – service name – GOV.UK’ as the page title
• ‘Sorry, the service is unavailable’ as the H1
• the day, date and time it is going to be available or what to do if it is permanently closed
• information about what has happened to their answers if they are in the middle of a transaction
• contact information, if it exists and helps meet a user need
• a link to another service, if they can use it to do what they came to do

Contact information should either be:

• a link to a specific page that includes numbers and opening times
• include all numbers and opening times

WCAG 2.2

You must always write contact information in a clear and consistent way across ‘Service unavailable’ and similar service error pages. This relates to WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.2.6 Consistent help.

Have clear and concise content and do not use:

• breadcrumbs
• vague, unhelpful words like maintenance, improvements
• red text to warn people

General page

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When you know when a service will be available

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A link to another service

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Service is closed for part of the year

This is for a service like tax credit renewals.

After a service closes

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Before a service opens

Do not include any contact information.

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Service is closed forever

Nothing has replaced the service

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Something has replaced the service

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Research on this pattern

This pattern was tested with 5 users. The user needs identified were to say:

• when the service will be available
• how they can do what they came to do

To meet the needs:

• give clear information about when the service will be available again
• if the service has closed forever, what has replaced it
• say what someone needs to do if they need to speak to someone
• include a link to another service or contact information about offline support

Next steps

More research is needed to find out:

• what people need to know
• what their expectations are after reading the page
• if people understand what is going on when they see the page

Help improve this pattern

To help make sure that this page is useful, relevant and up to date, you can:

• take part in the ‘Service unavailable pages’ discussion on GitHub and share your research
• propose a change – read more about how to propose changes in GitHub

Tell us if your service uses this pattern

Take part in our usage survey (opens in a new tab) to help us improve this pattern to better meet the needs of the services that use it.

Need help?

If you’ve got a question about the GOV.UK Design System, contact the team.