Usability and functionality of websites of commune offices as stimulants of sustainable development of e-government

University of Szczecin, Faculty of Management and Economics of Services, 8 CukrowaSt., 71-004 Szczecin, Poland

^* Corresponding author: agnieszka.tomaszewicz@wzieu.pl

Abstract

Sustainable development of e-government should be based on facilitating the meeting of society’s needs, mostly through enhancing access to information and providing public services which can be realized through the Internet, which is especially important in the time of dynamic increase in the number of its users. Creating useful and functional websites of offices, which will fully allow the enjoyment of benefits coming form new technologies, is an indispensable condition of this realization. Due to the above, research has been conducted the subject matter of which was the assessment of the content of the websites of commune offices of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in the context of adjusting them to the needs of local communities. The websites of the offices were analyzed in terms of their usability, functionality and the level of advancement of selected self-government e-services, where the criterion was, i.a. the substantial content, accuracy, technical and ergonomic quality. The results of the conducted research show that creating websites allowing smooth implementation of electronic services, employing standardized procedures related to the process of providing services makes the office more transparent and thus more citizen-friendly. This will also allow the improvement of the quality of their life as result-wise improvement of administrative serving the society thanks to offering an additional way of carrying out public services. These actions need to be recognized as an indispensable condition for enhancing the efficiency of e-government contributing to its sustainable development.