A novel model for assessing e-government websites using hybrid fuzzy decision-making methods

Abstract

Websites are considered as the core infrastructure of e-government, so evaluating the quality of websites assists organizations to provide high-quality online services to citizens. For this purpose, this paper is seeking to design a model that enables any organization to evaluate the quality of its websites and identify its strengths and weaknesses. The proposed model includes nine main indexes including “website design,” “responsiveness quality,” “security,” “content and information quality,” “participation,” “trust,” “maintenance and support,” “services” and “usability,” alongside with 85 indicators. Since some of indexes and indicators possess intrinsic uncertainties so “fuzzy set theory” was applied to model the problem’s ambiguity. “Analytic hierarchy process” and “PROMETHEE” methods were applied to weigh and rank indexes and indicators respectively. After designing the model, it was used for assessing the websites of five metropolitan municipalities of Iranian cities to spot their strengths and weaknesses.