Government Websites Usability and User Experience in Kenya

Abstract

With the increased internet use, citizens demand more e-services in paying bills, paying taxes, among others. Governments are striving to provide e-services to their citizens from a customer demand driven perspective as opposed to supplier oriented (UN e-Government survey, 2012). There is therefore the need for Kenya to enhance its e-services provision channels which are websites and portals. This research study evaluated the usability and user experiences in Kenyan government websites. It focused on the challenges that users faces in interacting with the websites through lab-based usability testing followed by a simple post-test survey and a debriefing interview. The study revealed that the Kenyan government websites had low usability rating and the usability issues were at basic website design level, like the font size, text-to-background contrast, broken links, self-pointing links on pages, among others. The findings also revealed that the contents of government websites were not constantly updated and their way of handling personal details compromised individual privacy. It further revealed that user experiences were poor and most users only revisit the sites as an obligation or lack of a better option. Guidelines and standards for government websites need to be established to minimize usability issues and improve on user experiences.