Abstract:

The Direção Geral do Ensino Superior (DGES - Portugal) is attentive to the full access of all students to higher education processes, both academic and communication processes, for complete equality of conditions. In the communication component, the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) develop a particular focus on websites and portals with generic information, news, training, always based on their own criteria in terms of form and standardized content. In the context of institutional assessment, criteria for quality and quantity of information are assessed. This study uses a Portuguese state platform that assesses the quality of websites or portals based on general and specific criteria such as contrast, colouring, written information vs graphic information, for example, which are integrated into a usability checklist, where analysis criteria or dimensions are present, such as: performance, navigability, design, forms and messages, organization of information, and availability of services. The objective of the study is to know the relevance given by the HEIs given the accessibility criteria of their institutional websites, identifying good practices that can serve as a guide in the construction of institutional websites. In fact the «Access Monitor» application, a tool of the accessibility.gov.pt ecosystem (government of Portugal), allows to place a specific website for analysis, that will be evaluated according to the criteria described above. In the same line, the Portuguese State makes available in the portal «usability.gov.pt» (an initiative of AMA - Agência para a Modernização Administrativa, IP) a set of good usability practices and shares useful tools to create good user experiences on public sites, user interface (UI) components, layout elements, iconography, buttons, css code and other resources designed from a user experience optimization perspective. This study was used with comparison objectives based on the collection of quantifiable indicators related to the accessibility of HEI sites with institutional accreditation listed on the Agência de Avaliação e Acreditação do Ensino Superior (A3ES website). The results obtained were presented and analysed globally and by teaching subsystem (university or polytechnic, public or private). It concludes about the best practices in terms of institutional building websites in the sense of making information available to the general public, but more specifically aiming public with individual specific cases regarding special education needs. Conclusions of the study are being implemented in an institutional website under construction.

Keywords:

Digital Transformation, Higher Education Institutions, User experience.