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Accessibility of local government websites: influence of financial resources, county characteristics and local demographics

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Abstract

Although many studies have investigated how well government websites have implemented website accessibility standards, such as Section 508 and WCAG 2.0, very little research has been conducted exploring what factors influence the level of implementation. Based on the organizational innovation model proposed by Frances Berry, this study examines 342 county government websites in the USA and analyzes how several factors, such as budget resources, local demographics and forms of county government, influence the accessibility of the sites. The result of the OLS estimate indicates that the complexity of the websites and the county population density are the most important predictors of web accessibility. County budget is also a marginal predictor, while the percentage of the population with disabilities is a negative predictor. Given the slow progress in the implementation of higher accessibility standards in the USA, the findings of this study provide timely implications for policymakers and governments to improve the quality of their websites.

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Fig. 1

Availability of data and materials

The data used for this study are available upon request. One of the authors has published another paper that explores a different issue in a different journal using the same dataset.

Notes

  1. See Section 508 Standards at https://section508.gov/summary-section508-standards.

  2. For example, under the homepage of Centre County (PA)’s website (https://centrecountypa.gov/), there are multiple subpages such as the page about the Board of Commissioners (https://centrecountypa.gov/Index.aspx?NID=163) and the page about Human Resources (https://centrecountypa.gov/Index.aspx?NID=175). We configured the evaluation tool to randomly select ten of the subpages and assess the accessibility of those subpages. Therefore, the end result obtained for the website reflects the accessibility issues present on the homepage and also its ten subpages.

  3. The Social Security Administration statistics define disabilities broadly including both conventional disabilities such as difficulties in seeing and hearing and any condition that limits people’s moving, cognitive and interaction abilities. See the definitions of disability status used by the Social Security Administration at https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p70-152.pdf.

  4. See the data sources of BroadbandNow at https://broadbandnow.com/data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

    Yang Bai, Bumgi Min & Krishna Jayakar

  2. Independent Researcher, Springfield, MA, USA

    Jenna Grzeslo

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  1. Yang Bai
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  2. Jenna Grzeslo
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Correspondence to Yang Bai.

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The SPSS syntax used to conduct the analysis is available upon request.

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Bai, Y., Grzeslo, J., Min, B. et al. Accessibility of local government websites: influence of financial resources, county characteristics and local demographics. Univ Access Inf Soc 20, 851–861 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-020-00752-5

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