Council websites are failing to satisfy their visitors, according to a report by web accessibility specialists Webcredible. Just four of the 20 sites in a survey carried out in June achieved a usability score of over 60% and more than half scored less than 50%.

 

The report, ‘Local Council Websites: Designed by Committee?’ showed how Webcredible had benchmarked the council websites against a set of guidelines including clear navigation, ease of access to planning applications and straightforward payment of council tax.

 

According to a recent Society of IT Management survey, the number of transactional council sites has doubled from 60 to 121 from 2006 to 2007. Councils are also aware of the growing trends of the online population of the UK as more and more users are coming online to seek out information on the internet.

 

The report shows how the 20 councils examined in the survey performed across the benchmark categories. Most of the councils fared badly when it came to offering users different text sizes on the website, a facility which is useful for partially sighted users. However, the sites did better with the task of finding users local councillors, which had an overall usability score of 70%. Planning applications were not quite so easy to find, scoring 58%.

 

Aimed at local government, especially those involved in web development and marketing, the report is also useful for anyone running information and transaction based websites as the guidelines involved are transferable. The full report can be read here.