Determining the Accessibility of e-Government Websites in Sub-Saharan Africa Against WCAG 2.0 Standard

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the conformance levels of government websites in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and examine which macro factors influenced the accessibility these websites. The findings indicated that the majority of government websites in SSA still had a long way to go to become accessible based on the WCAG 2.0 standards. None of the 217 government websites examined adhered to all the WCAG 2.0 guidelines. Cross country analysis showed that there are three macro factors influencing e-government accessibility in SSA, namely Human Development Index (HDI), Corruption Perception Index (CPI), and percentage of the active population (15-64 years). Countries with high HDI levels and low CPI levels tend to have websites with fewer accessibility errors, while those for countries with high percentage of the active population have more accessibility errors.