Evaluating the Accessibility of E-Government Websites in Sudan

Abstract

Government websites offer great benefits to citizens and governments. Such benefits, however, cannot be realized if websites have accessibility issues that make the ability to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the site difficult to the users. It is essential that electronic government (e-government) sites be accessible to all persons with equal access and equal opportunities for all people including those with disabilities. It is therefore necessary to ensure greater compliance of the government websites with established web accessibility standards and guidelines. This is inline with an initiative to promote better delivery of government websites. This research investigate the extent to which accessibility is taken into account in the design of Sudanese e-government website. The accessibility of the Sudanese e-government websites was investigated based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.The investigation conducted by using two evaluation methods, namely automatic testing tools and expert checking of target Website. The results found that Sudanese e-government portal is not fully compliant to the WCAG 2.0, and revealed a variety of accessibility problems with the sites. The most common detected accessibility problems were related to the absence of text equivalents for non-text elements, the absence of labels or instructions when content requires user input and link purpose is not identified from link text alone.