Identification of attributes for evaluating the content of e-government websites: a systematic literature review

In the last twenty years, e-government has become a strong complement to traditional public services. This study involved a systematic literature review to select studies enabling the identification of the attributes used to evaluate how content is delivered to users. The search strategy was limited to four databases to cover e-government multidisciplinary areas. The sources of information used were books, book chapters, conference papers, and articles in peer-reviewed journals, written in English or Portuguese, and which subjects included e-government research, published since 2000. The PRISMA statement has guided the research methodology. The lack of explanation of the role of the attributes found in the studies and the diversified terminology used, can be pointed as the main limitations of the study. On the other hand, since the interpretation was based on author past experiences and convictions, there may be a bias in the understanding of the less clear attributes with consequences on their description and the interpretation of similarities among attributes. The research resulted in the identification of 139 attributes, from which 56 are considered main attributes, and 83 similar attributes. Attributes such as quality, interface, content, information, user experience, usability, and accessibility appear as the most relevant.