Open government data portal usability: A user-centred usability analysis of 41 open government data portals

Abstract Open government data, as a phenomena, may be considered an important and influential innovation that has the potential to drive the creation of public value via enabling the prevention of corruption, increase in accountability and transparency, and driving the co-creation of new and innovative services. However, in order for open government data to be fully taken advantage of, it must be found, understood, and used. Though many countries maintain open government data portals, the usability of said portals can vary greatly; this is important to understand as the usability of a portal likely impacts the eventual reuse of the data made available there. Acknowledging the importance of portal usability to the data reuse process, this paper helps to elucidate some initial insights by asking two questions: “How can the usability of open government data portals be evaluated and compared across contexts?” and “What are the most commonly missing usability aspects from open government data portals?”. In order to answer these research questions, a subset of 41 national open government data portals were selected for an in-depth usability analysis drawing on the feedback from 40 individual users. As a result of this analysis, the paper is able to make three primary contributions: (1) the validation of a framework for open government data portal usability analysis, (2) develops an initial comparative international ranking of open government data portal usability, and (3) identifies commonly occurring portal usability strengths and weaknesses across contexts.

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