Evaluating and improving the usability of e-government websites in Sub-Saharan Africa for enhancing citizen adoption and usage

[摘要] English: E-government has been widely known to be an important factor for fostering a nation'seconomic and social development. It holds enormous potential for improving the administrativeefficiency of public institutions, encouraging democratic governance, deracinating public sectorcorruption, and building trust between citizens/private sector and governments. However, moste-government initiatives to date have failed to attain their full potential, because they areincreasingly plagued by usability issues.The case is worse for e-government initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as many researchershave posited that this region is the least developed with regards to e-government diffusion.Moreover, its e-government systems are mostly characterised by poor usability. Consequently,advancing e-government in SSA necessitates advancing the usability of current e-governmentsystems in the region, as usability has been shown to be a vital precondition for e-governmentprogress. As such, this study had as primary objective to develop a model for improving theusability of e-government websites in SSA. The study focused on e-government websites asthese sites are generally acknowledged to be the primary platform for government interactionwith citizens and other stakeholders.In order to achieve this goal, the design science research (DSR) approach was used as the overallresearch method for this thesis. The DSR was selected due to its core focus on developing usefulartefacts that can effectively address DSR problems. This research approach was furthersupported by mixed methods encompassing usability evaluation (heuristic evaluation andautomated testing) and cross-sectional analysis of national indicators.Using a six-dimensional framework as the core theoretical framework for assessing the usabilityof e-government websites in SSA, the study concluded that SSA e-government websites werecurrently characterised by poor usability. After evaluating 279 e-government websites from 31SSA countries, it was observed that the average usability score for the websites was 36.2%, withthe most usable website having a score of 64.8%, while the least usable website scored 10.8%.The poor level of usability was consistent for all the six dimensions. Out of a weighted score of16.7 for each dimension, the following mean scores were obtained: 7.6 for online services, 6.3 for user-help and feedback, 6.2 for navigation, 5.7 for legitimacy, 5.4 for information architecture, and 3.3 for accessibility accommodation. The study further identified 8 national indicators (corruption, cybersecurity, gender inequality, global competitiveness, human development, innovation, national income, and population age distribution) with significant associations to both e-government development and the usability of e-government websites in SSA.Based on these findings, a policy-ingrained model was proposed for advancing the usability of e-government websites in SSA. The model comprised of four mental models (government, designer, evaluator, and user), with each having both general and specific strategies for improving e-government website usability in SSA. Additionally, the model presented the practical and policy implications regarding the role that the identified national indicators could play in advancing e-government website usability in the region. Moreover, the model was accompanied by a quick assessment checklist that could be used by IT staff of government agencies to evaluate their websites in order to determine which strategies from the model could be applied. The outcomes of this study could contribute to the development of practical and policy-based solutions for improving the usability of e-government websites in SSA, as well as advance the theoretical knowledge base on the use of information systems in government.

[发布机构] University of the Free State