The purpose of this paper is to report on the level of government web portal resource development, impediments to progress in electronic government practices, and areas that require improvement in 19 Latin American countries.
A comparative study was carried out between March and May of 2012, based on a method combining heuristic usability analysis with an automatic web portal accessibility test.
The results suggest that Latin American government web portals do not fully meet international accessibility guidelines and that multidirectional communication and participation mechanisms lack diversity. Only functionalities related to usability presented positive scores, but with shortcomings in terms of security.
Extensive literature is available on the development of electronic government policies in Latin America. This study falls within that tradition but, in addition, offers a new perspective by examining the features of web portals, which ultimately aids the calibration of the results of policy implementation. The data obtained are useful for web developers, ICT policy designers and the entire community of actors involved in developing electronic government programs.
