Accessibility in mobile applications of portuguese public administration

Abstract

Today’s society presents a fast development marked by the digital era, where the sharing, disclosure and access to information is made through information and communication technologies.

The use of mobile applications is growing exponentially, spreading to the most varied social classes and everyday activity areas. Worldwide, its use in the most variety of services, has been increasing significantly. Given that, it is essential that mobile applications are accessible in a way that allows access conditions and equal opportunities to all the users.

With this study we present indicators regarding the state of accessibility in mobile applications through the evaluation of five Portuguese public administration applications. The methodology used was a fully manual evaluation through a proposal of a model of evaluation divided by quantitative and qualitative requirements created by us, as well as the use of functionalities such as VoiceOver and TalkBack.

Taking into account that the study initially proposed on accessibility in mobile applications is the first to be carried out in Portugal and one of the few currently worldwide, it is believed that its content may help, in some way, to raise awareness of the state of accessibility in the Portuguese mobile applications, to create measures that make these applications more accessible to all and that this work could be taken into account in future studies of the topic.