Global E-government Web Accessibility: A Case Study

Abstract

The number of persons with disabilities accessing e-government is growing, although this growth has not come without issues. Although some countries have legal protection to ensure equal access to web sites, including e-government sites, the mere presence of a law does not guarantee compliance. This research examines the accessibility of e-government web sites for 12 developing and developed countries. The research found that there were serious accessibility issues for all e-government sites, even those whose governments claimed adherence to accessibility standards or legislation. The results show a variety of accessibility problems with the sites, but most issues were centered on a minority of specific industry checkpoint errors, such as lack of providing alternate text for images. It is suggested that Web developers implement design recommendation provided in industry standards to improve the accessibility rankings of their sites and provide more open sites to people with disabilities.