Usability Evaluation of Pakistani Security Agencies Websites

Abstract

In the post 9/11 world, homeland security has become focal issue for every country and governments are constantly improving security mechanisms to protect their citizens. Pakistan being the front line state in the war against terror is one of the heavily affected countries by terrorism. Timely information dissemination to public by security agencies can help citizens to be prepared and carry out protective measures. Information technology artifacts and the internet can be very beneficial for information dissemination purpose. In this paper the author specifically looked at Pakistani security agency websites 1to evaluate usability aspects. Initially we conducted a usability testing in lab setting, where our questions were based on Jakob Nielson's heuristics. In order to further validate our findings the authors prepared a questionnaire and got it filled out by end users. Survey results highlighted that these websites have several usability problems which need to be rectified before they could effectively be used. The findings of the study help e-government practitioners and policy makers to develop their websites according to user needs.