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Government website accessibility: a cross-country analysis of G7 and BRICS countries

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Abstract

The Internet has revolutionized how users are able to work and gather information. In modern world, information is available on a mouse click. This is all possible due to the huge gamut of information available on the web. While websites are designed to be informative, accessibility is an important criterion that is overlooked during website design. This paper makes the following contributions: (1) The accessibility of the home page of government websites of Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies of the world including the USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada as well as Group of BRICS countries which includes five major emerging economies of the world including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa has been analyzed (2) The results of G7 government website accessibility analysis have been compared with that of BRICS countries and further processed to examine the findings Group-wise, country-wise, ministry-wise and WCAG Principle-wise. (3) Major flaws in the existing website designs have been identified and recommendations for improvement in the government websites have been given. The paper reveals that BRICS countries are not behind in terms of compliance of WCAG guidelines related to the accessibility of websites. The major flaws in compliance with guidelines were associated with robustness, which can be overcome by making websites more compatible with different devices and adopting the suggested measures.

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  1. Central University of Rajasthan, Ajmer, India

    Nishtha Kesswani & Sanjay Kumar

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  1. Nishtha Kesswani
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  2. Sanjay Kumar
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Correspondence to Nishtha Kesswani.

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Kesswani, N., Kumar, S. Government website accessibility: a cross-country analysis of G7 and BRICS countries. Univ Access Inf Soc 21, 609–624 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-021-00804-4

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