LONG PAPER e-Government in Rhode Island: what effects do templates have on usability, accessibility, and mobile readiness? Robert Anthony Galvez • Norman E. Youngblood Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract This study examines state and local e-govern- ment Web sites in Rhode Island with an eye toward determining the effects of templates on accessibility, usability, and mobile readiness. After examining 132 state and local e-government sites, using a combination of code inspection, heuristic evaluation, and automated analysis, the researchers found that templates had, at best, mixed success in promoting these key issues. The results suggest that while best practice-based templates may be helpful in improving usability, accessibility, and mobile readiness, it is critical that designers at the local level receive training in these areas and that governments monitor state and local Web sites for compliance with industry and legal standards. Keywords e-Government  Accessibility  Mobile readiness  Usability  Templates 1 Introduction Web site usability reinforces trust in e-government and that trust is a critical factor in citizenry using e-government [1]. At the state and local level, however, e-government Web sites often have usability and accessibility problems [2–5]. These issues become further complicated as the way citi- zens access the Internet is changing. The Pew Research Center reports that over one-third of American adults now own tablets [6], and over half of American adults use smartphones [7]. Thus, state and local Web sites should be usable, accessible, well coded, and mobile-device ready. As the smallest state in the USA, Rhode Island offers a unique opportunity to examine an e-government micro- cosm, a microcosm made all the more intriguing as the state has made state-level Web site templates available to local governments as evidenced by the multiple cities that have used the template, such as Lincoln, Pawtucket, and Portsmouth, among others. In the last national study of state-level e-government Web sites, Rhode Island ranked 25th [8] placing it squarely in the middle of the other states in terms of e-government features and site usability. This study applies usability heuristics, automated anal- yses, and code inspection to assess a statewide population of state and local Rhode Island government Web sites and examines whether sites using templates developed by one of the nation’s leading e-government firms would result in better site usability and accessibility. It also establishes benchmarks that can be used for future studies. In the context of this study, 92 state-level sites and 39 local-level sites were examined. To assess usability, a 12-point usability heuristic was applied to each site’s homepage, based on prior e-government and corporate usability research [5, 8]. To study accessibility, the Web sites were checked for compliance with two existing accessibility standards, the 1998 amendment of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1973 [10] and WCAG 2.0, the second iteration of the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [11]. While Section 508 does not currently apply to state and local government Web sites, the Department of Justice is in the process of reviewing how Section 508 guidelines should be applied R. A. Galvez Communication Department, Rhode Island College, 600 Mt. Pleasant Ave., Providence, RI 02908, USA e-mail: rgalvez@ric.edu N. E. Youngblood (&) School of Communication and Journalism, Auburn University, 217 Tichenor Hall, Auburn, AL 36849, USA e-mail: ed.youngblood@auburn.edu 123 Univ Access Inf Soc DOI 10.1007/s10209-014-0384-x