Digital Citizen Rights: Accessibility of E-Government Websites in Italy

Nowadays, digital services pervade all our life. Accessible services can greatly empower the personal autonomy of people with disabilities. In Europe, accessible and usable interfaces for assuring a satisfying interaction with applications and services created by Public Administrations is a right for any citizen, regardless of any functioning or ability. In this paper, starting from experience of people with disabilities, the accessibility of Italian PA services has been investigated to evaluate progresses in a time range of six years. Results suggest that PA services have increased but no substantial improvement in terms of accessibility has been recorded. Simplified interaction and increased efficiency are still lacking, even if global user satisfaction seems to have slightly improved. However, the virtuous cycle of accessibility improvement is steadily in progress thanks to tools and resources made available by eGovernment agencies with the voluntary contribution of the Italian designer and development community, and this will hopefully lead to further improvements in the coming years.