Accessibility of e-government websites in Italy: the user experience of people with disabilities

Public Administration services must be accessible for anyone, including people with disabilities who interact via assistive technology. In 2016, the European Union published Directive 2016/2102 with the aim of making such services more accessible to any citizen, regardless of its abilities. This paper investigates the accessibility of e-Government services in Italy from the point of view of people with disabilities: seventy-six users participated in an online survey, and the collected answers have been further refined through semi-structured interviews. Results have been compared with a previous study, showing that the number of services has 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.