Usability, Accessibility, e-Government, Government Websites, Automation Evaluation Tools, Heuristics Evaluation

E-government applications may have benefits for the elderly or people with disabilities in terms of providing them with more effective, efficient and satisfactory services. However, for these citizens to get maximum benefits from government services through e-government applications, usability and accessibility criteria should be met. Despite the recent huge increase in the number of government websites, the poor usability and accessibility characteristics of these websites result in a failure to fulfill citizens’ needs and expectations. The aim of this study was to evaluate usability and accessibility of Libyan government websites. Usability evaluation was conducted by recruiting 32 end users with heuristics and accessibility evaluation was performed using automated testing tools. To this end, a total of 10 government websites in Libya were analyzed according to the criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and one of them was selected for further analysis based on usability criteria. Results of the study showed that Management of Scholarships website had significant number of usability problems. Visibility of system status, user control and freedom, and user help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors were the most violated heuristic items. All Libyan government websites did not pass accessibility evaluation, except Management of Scholarships, for AChecker tool, but they all failed in TAW tool. Providing text alternatives for each non-text elements was the most frequently violated success criteria for Libyan government websites.