Author
Listed:
- Iyad Abu-Doush
- Ashraf Bany-Mohammed
- Emad Ali
- Mohammed Al-Betar
Abstract
Accessibility of e-government services is a key issue for people with disabilities. E-government services can significantly save lot of their effort and provide them with lot of easy to reach services. Yet, accessibility of e-government websites is still under-explored topic in Jordan. In order to understand the accessibility of e-government websites and its problems, this study evaluates a set of e-government websites using 20 blind and visually impaired volunteers and at the same time conducts a survey on e-government websites developers. The results from e-government websites accessibility evaluation are compared with expert's review. For both the evaluation and the survey we used a set of accessibility guidelines developed by W3C [i.e. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0)], Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, and other literature review. In order to evaluate a reasonable number of e-government Web sites, a set of common e-government websites visited by the blind community were identified and a set of specific common tasks to test were defined. The analysis of the research results revealed a serious weakness in understanding, adopting and implementing Web accessibility guidelines throughout nearly all Jordanian e-government websites. Improving awareness, training developers and users, and developing formal guidelines of Web accessibility are needed to enable visually impaired and blind users in accessing e-government Web sites and their services. Further research analysis discusses and identifies key areas in which e-government accessibility can be enhanced.
Suggested Citation
Iyad Abu-Doush & Ashraf Bany-Mohammed & Emad Ali & Mohammed Al-Betar, 2013.
"Towards a more accessible e-government in Jordan: an evaluation study of visually impaired users and Web developers,"
Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 273-293.
Handle:
RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:32:y:2013:i:3:p:273-293
DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2011.630416
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