2
The website’s homepage
Labs dot com
In this issue, we review the website of
the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Com-
munity Development. The website aims
to achieve the Ministry’s vision to “elevate
cultural and societal awareness, enhance
the national identity and revive local heri-
tage; through effective coordination with
partners and excellence in both service
and human resources.”
Below is a quick review of the website in
three main areas: Accessibility, Usability
and Design, and Content.
Accessibility:
Accessibility refers to providing a website
that is comaptible with a wide range of
web browsers. The URL should be easy
to remember and the website easily ac-
cessed through search engines. People
with special needs should be able to use
the website with no difficulty.
Below are a few remarks on the web-
site in this regard:
The website has an easy to remember
URL
). However, we
couldn’t reach the website through the top
Arabic domain (.Emarat).
It appears among top results when search-
ing for phrases related to cultural centres
and activities in the UAE.
The website provides the option to in-
crease font size. It would also be useful to
add text-to-speech tool to help the visually
impaired.
File attributes (i.e. file size and type) are
missing from downloadable files.
The English homepage is not compatible
with Chrome browser (screenshot 1).
Usability and Design:
Usability refers to “The extent to which a
product can be used by specified users to
achieve specified goals with effectiveness,
efficiency and satisfaction in a specified
context.” For websites, it could be defined
as the process of measuring and manag-
ing ease of use for users interacting with
a website.
Below are a few remarks on the web-
site in this regard:
The homepage needs to be more user-
centric and provides services most used
by users (screenshot 1).
The sitemap is well organised and helps
I
n each issue of Smart Government magazine, we review
one of the government websites to highlight its main
strengths as well as areas for improvement. Our common
goal is for the user to be able to access government servic-
es easily and conveniently anytime, anywhere in line with
the UAE Vision 2021.
Rich in information and services ...
