Exploring the Usability of Municipal Web Sites: A Comparison Based on Expert Evaluation Results from Four Case Studies

The usability of public administration web sites is a key quality attribute for the successful implementation of the Information Society. Formative usability evaluation aims at finding and reporting usability problems as early as possible in the development process. The objective of this paper is to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Informatica economica 2010-10, Vol.14 (4), p.87-96
Main Authors: Pribeanu, Costin, Marinescu, Ruxandra-Dora, Iordache, Dragos Daniel, Gheorghe-Moisii, Maria
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparative analysis
Design
Electronic government
Ergonomic Criteria
Expert Evaluation
Formative evaluation
Formative Usability Evaluation
Heuristic
Heuristic Evaluation
Information society
Methods
Municipal Web Sites
Municipalities
Performance evaluation
Public administration
Studies
Usability
Usability Problem
User interface
User Testing
Validity
Websites
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Summary:The usability of public administration web sites is a key quality attribute for the successful implementation of the Information Society. Formative usability evaluation aims at finding and reporting usability problems as early as possible in the development process. The objective of this paper is to present and comparatively analyze the results of an expert usability evaluation of 4 municipality web sites. In order to document usability problems an extended set of heuristics was used that is based on two sources: usability heuristics and ergonomic criteria. The explanatory power of heuristics was supplemented with a set of usability guidelines. The evaluation results revealed that a set of specific tasks with clearly defined goals helps to identify many severe usability problems that occur frequently in the municipality web sites. A typical issue for this category of web sites is the lack of information support for the user. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:1453-1305
1842-8088