SPREADING WEBSITE USABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY INTO SOCIETY: EXAMPLES FROM PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS IN TURKEY

Abstract

Usability and Accessibility issues increasingly become important for efficacious use of publicly available websites and e-inclusion (among others) in today's knowledge society. In Turkey, there are also various initiatives taken for the diffusion of usability and accessibility into society. In this article, specific examples from public and private sector will be provided to present the Turkish case for usability and accessibility. In public sector, Türksat assumes a responsible role for the development and diffusion of standards for usability and accessibility. Various ongoing innovative initiatives in other public institutions such as Middle East Technical University complement these efforts for the improvement of usability. While, such public initiatives are important, they are not sufficient, and needs to be complemented with private initiatives. A good example of private sector initiative is Userspots. Furthermore, future initiatives are being considered for developing tools for online assessment of or focusing on web forms’ usability/accessibility. These will be presented as examples of noteworthy initiatives and prospects in Turkey for raising awareness to and spreading usability and accessibility in public affairs. It is hoped the presented information about these initiatives will also provide useful information for related initiatives in other countries

Keywords

• Usability, Accessibility

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