Web site accessibility and quality in use: a comparative study of government Web sites in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkey

Government Web sites aim to provide information to the citizens of the country; therefore, they should be accessible, easy to use and visible via search engines. Based on this assumption, in this paper, the ministry Web sites of four countries namely the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Turkey were analyzed in terms of accessibility and quality in use. Tests were carried out utilizing online automated tools. Results indicate that the usage rate of Information and Communication Technologies by the government is higher in Turkey, which affects the visibility of government Web sites but not their quality in use. Very few ministry Web sites of the four countries achieved AA conformance level on accessibility, many failed to pass conformance level A and AA checkpoints for accessibility errors. In order to ensure equal access to all their citizens, the countries in this study need to put more emphasis on designing government Web sites to be more accessible.

[1]  J. Panel.  Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , 2013 .

[2]  Mustafa Al-Radaideh,et al.  Evaluating Accessibility of Jordanian E-Government Websites for People with Disabilities , 2011 .

[3]  Taewoo Nam,et al.  Determining the type of e-government use , 2014, Gov. Inf. Q..

[4]  Rita Ismailova,et al.  Web site accessibility, usability and security: a survey of government web sites in Kyrgyz Republic , 2015, Universal Access in the Information Society.

[5]  Kyeong Kang,et al.  The Importance of Web Accessibility in Business to-Consumer ( B 2 C ) Websites , 2013 .

[6]  A. Noureldien,et al.  Usability Measurement Model (UMM): A New Model for Measuring Websites Usability , 2015 .

[7]  R. Brüning,et al.  [Analysis of the internet presence of the German Society of Neuroradiology]. , 2015, Clinical neuroradiology.

[8]  Sangwon Lee,et al.  The effects of usability and web design attributes on user preference for e-commerce web sites , 2010, Comput. Ind..

[9]  Marijn Janssen,et al.  Evaluating websites from a public value perspective: A review of Turkish local government websites , 2014, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[10]  Joanne M. Kuzma,et al.  Accessibility design issues with UK e-government sites , 2010, Gov. Inf. Q..

[11]  Jamie N. DeWaters,et al.  A Quest for website accessibility in higher education institutions , 2008, Internet High. Educ..

[12]  Lili Wang,et al.  Evaluating Web-Based E-Government Services with a Citizen-Centric Approach , 2005, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[13]  Cristiano Maciel,et al.  A Quality Inspection Method to Evaluate E-Government Sites , 2005, EGOV.

[14]  S. Luján-Mora,et al.  Egovernment and web accessibility in South America , 2014, 2014 First International Conference on eDemocracy & eGovernment (ICEDEG).

[15]  Manas Ranjan Patra,et al.  A Quantitative Analysis of WCAG 2.0 Compliance For Some Indian Web Portals , 2014, International Journal of Computer Science, Engineering and Applications.

[16]  Meilan Zhang,et al.  Discovering the unequal interest in popular online educational games and its implications: A case study , 2016, Br. J. Educ. Technol..

[17]  Serhat Kurt,et al.  The accessibility of university web sites: the case of Turkish universities , 2011, Universal Access in the Information Society.

[18]  Joanne Kuzma,et al.  Analysis of U.S. Senate Web Sites For Disability Accessibility , 2009 .

[19]  Peter Laco,et al.  METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING WEBSITE IMPROVEMENT IN CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT , 2014 .

[20]  R. Brüning,et al.  Analyse zur Internetpräsenz der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neuroradiologie , 2015, Clinical Neuroradiology.

[21]  Xiaoyi Wang,et al.  Evaluating the readiness of government portal websites in China to adopt contemporary public administration principles , 2012, Gov. Inf. Q..

[22]  Shadi Abou-Zahra,et al.  Web Accessibility Evaluation , 2008, Web Accessibility.

[23]  Xiang Fang,et al.  An empirical study of web site navigation structures' impacts on web site usability , 2007, Decis. Support Syst..

[24]  Valentina Della Fina,et al.  The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , 2017 .

[25]  Pam J. Mayhew,et al.  Accessibility : In-Depth Evaluation of Saudi Arabia and Oman , 2005 .

[26]  Wan Abdul Rahim Wan Mohd Isa,et al.  Assessing the Usability and Accessibility of Malaysia E-Government Website , 2011 .

[27]  David L. Baker,et al.  Advancing E-Government performance in the United States through enhanced usability benchmarks , 2009, Gov. Inf. Q..

[28]  Yakup Akgül,et al.  Web Accessibility Evaluation of Government Websites for People with Disabilities in Turkey , 2016 .

[29]  Laurence Brooks,et al.  Comparing Local e-Government Websites in Canada and the UK , 2015, EGOV.

[30]  Dr. Ravi M Gulati,et al.  Software Performance Testing Tools – A Comparative Analysis Mrs , 2012 .

[31]  Mohamad Noorman Masrek,et al.  Accessibility Evaluation on Malaysian E-Government Websites , 2010 .

[32]  Meilan Zhang,et al.  Internet use that reproduces educational inequalities: Evidence from big data , 2015, Comput. Educ..

[33]  Hana Kopackova,et al.  Accessibility and findability of local e-government websites in the Czech Republic , 2010, Universal Access in the Information Society.

[34]  Abdelsalam Obedidat,et al.  Accessibility as an Indicator of Jordanian E-Government Website Quality , 2013, 2013 Fourth International Conference on e-Learning "Best Practices in Management, Design and Development of e-Courses: Standards of Excellence and Creativity".

[35]  長瀬 修.  わかりやすい障害者の権利条約 : 知的障害のある人の権利のために = Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities , 2009 .