Identification of Heuristics for Assessing the Usability of Websites of Public Administration Units

Abstract

A very important aspect of modern websites is their usability. Thanks to modern, and constantly developing technologies it is possible to create user-friendly services for each user. The usefulness of online services may be considered in terms of their functionality, clarity, and accessibility. It is particularly important that these criteria are met by public administration websites. The aim of this paper is to present the most common usability errors identified on the websites of public administration units as well as to indicate the links between particular types of problems and traditional heuristics of Jakob Nielsen. The survey was conducted by evaluating the websites of the Public Information Bulletin in Poland (BIP, which stands for “Biuletyn Informacji Publicznej”), which are supposed to provide universal access to public information by the citizens of the country. A heuristic method (based on J. Nielsen’s heuristics) was used to evaluate 60 websites. The errors obtained were grouped into 14 categories. Each of the error groups was assessed by an expert in terms of its importance for the overall assessment of the website’s usefulness. The analysis of relations between the identified categories of errors and heuristics of Jakob Nielsen indicates a need for specifying heuristics in the context of evaluating the usability and availability of public administration websites.