Usability Survey Report of Indian State Government Web Portals

Dr. Dinesh S. Katre
Presently heads the National Multimedia Resource Centre of C-DAC, Pune as Group Coordinator

This article presents a survey of eight randomly selected web portals setup by Indian state governments. Though my main objective is to evaluate the usability of web portals from the perspective of citizens living in a particular state, when I began the usability evaluation, I realized that most of these web portals are too far from the goal of usability. Therefore, I had to bring down the level of evaluation and restrict it to 'Technical Maturity' and 'Basic User Interface'.

• Technical Maturity refers to effective use of web tools.
• Basic User Interface refers to the use of common user interface elements and elementary design principles.

Legend for Table 1 / Part A & B :
+ = Positive - = Negative

Positive - stands for good presence of that particular aspect stated in the parameter.
Negative - stands for weak of lack of presence of that particular aspect stated in the parameter.

Click to view the Usability Survey Report Table

As per the 10 criteria of 'Technical Maturity', the web portals of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan have done fairly well. On the contrary, the web portals of Bihar, Haryana, Panjab and West Bengal have scored very badly. It is evident that most state governments have not hired the best technical experts to develop their web portals. But shockingly, the web portal of Haryana Government shows a scrolling caption about its winning an award during 7th National Conference on e-Governance. As per this survey report Haryana state web portal has scored very poorly (Technical Maturity = 10% and Basic User Interface = 3%).  

As per the 30 criteria of 'Basic User Interface', the web portals of Maharashtra and Gujarat states have scored approx. 50% points. On the contrary, the web portals of Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnatak, Panjab and West Bengal have scored very badly. Basic application of user interface components and design principles is very weak.

These web portal will be eligible for usability evaluation only after they comply with at least 75% of the criteria. It is evident that these web portals are really far from the goal of usability. It is surprising that the web portal of Karnatak state, which claims to be the hub of Indian IT, scored only (Technical Maturity = 30% and Basic User Interface = 30%). The other leading states like Maharashtra (Technical Maturity = 80% and Basic User Interface = 60%) and Gujarat (Technical Maturity = 70% and Basic User Interface = 46.6%) have relatively better web portals.

In the selected sample of 8 web portals only 2 (25% of them) are positive on the criteria. One will have to evaluate further to find how much positive they are on each criterion. Present sample of web portals (approx. 25%) is fairly representative enough for total number of web portals belonging to 29 states and 6 union territories of India.  

Another common problem visible in most web portals is that they do not provide current information. It means, the state governments have not developed mechanisms for hosting latest information. It is very likely that they have not created the technical supports to maintain the portals. But most web portals have promptly updated the photographs/names of ministers and other senior bureaucrats! Also the state governments are not using web portals as a effective tool or a medium to interface with citizens.

Very few of them try to promote local education, industries, agriculture, culture and tourism. As if it is of no business to them. No wonder if World Bank Report projects 35% of e-government projects in developing countries as total failures.

Source: Reprinted from: HCI Vistas, Article IRN-8./March 2006.