E-government in Hubei, China: An Evaluation of County Government Portal Usability, Accessibility, Election Content, and Mobile Readiness

Many studies have investigated e-government issues in the U.S. at the state and local levels. However, similar research about Chinese e-government websites is relatively few. To fill this void, this study investigated the e-government practices by the counties in Hubei province, China. Hubei province is selected due to its size, economic status, and geographic location, which makes it a good representative of other provinces in China. Besides usability, this study investigates Hubei county e-government portals on their accessibility, election content, and mobile readiness, to give a comprehensive evaluation of the local e-government practices in China. The findings suggest that though most Hubei county e-government websites followed many usability rules well, they deliver very little voting and election content on their websites. Many of them do poorly in compliance with accessibility standards. The mobile readiness, on the contrary, is quite high and matches the current mobile trend in China.