Usability of e-government Taipei city web accessibility for the visually impaired persons (blind)

Usability of E-government Taipei City Web Accessibility for the Visually Impaired Persons (Blind) By Yi Yee Goh This is an empirical research on e-government web accessibility exclusively for visual impaired persons, in particular for blind people in Taipei, Taiwan. Universal access is an important telecommunication concept in the information age, aiming to eliminate the digital divide. Persons with disabilities are one of the most disadvantaged groups that suffer from the digital divide. Web accessibility for this group therefore is important in the discussion of universal access. Although there has been a growing concern in related studies in the fields of web technologies, policies and end users, still, the difficulties for disabled persons, especially for visually impaired persons, remains. Narrowing down the focus to the usability of web content, with the evaluation tools of the International Web Accessibility guidelines on Web design, this paper suggests what the web designers of e-government city websites, should attend to when designing Web pages which in turn could be presented as a model for the other websites. The purpose of the present study is to determine the implementation of the guidelines to web content and what criteria might be missing from the international guidelines when websites are designed for Taiwanese Internet users. Keywords: Web accessibilit