Accessibility Evaluation of Brazilian Municipal Websites
Abstract
The use of the Internet to disseminate information has reached levels never seen before. However, the way in which information is provided affects directly its access. The concept of web accessibility is concerned with ensuring access to information to all user groups, regardless of barriers or disabilities. The full achievement of this goal is very challenging and requires awareness of developers and governmental initiatives. Therefore, tools for accessibility ratings help accelerate the development and monitoring of accessible sites. The use of accessibility metrics is a challenge and presents numerous opportunities for research. This paper discusses results of an evaluation about accessibility in Brazilian municipalities web sites considering the Accessibility Model for Electronic Government in Brazil (e-MAG) and metrics. The results present the main data from automatic evaluations and the correlation between these results and social indicators from the Human Development Indexes of these municipalities. The analysis reveals that there is no evidence of a correlation between human development indexes and levels of accessibility, suggesting that the accessibility of governmental websites is a problem to be tackled in all parts of the country.
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