Usability Evaluation of E-Government Websites in Saudi Arabia by Cognitive Walkthrough

Abstract

Government websites are the easy sources of getting access to the services offered by governmental organizations. These websites provide manifold benefits to their users i.e. efficiency of use, cost decline, effective communication between citizens and government, delivery of different service, transparency and time saving. However, users cannot get full benefit out of these services if the e-government websites are not interactive and user friendly. Keeping this view into consideration, study investigated the usability concerns of the e-government websites in Saudi Arabia. Cognitive walk-through is selected as the implication method to figure out usability related traits by the real users of the interfaces. Findings from the study showed that these websites are partially usable for the users, as they lack some of the major concerns of the usability. Evaluation results showed the clear picture of the usability features of the selected websites of Saudi Arabia both in positive and negative ways. Furthermore, recommendations are given to improve overall quality of these websites.