A Long and Winding Road? Analyzing E-Government Website Maturity in Germany

Distel B, Becker J

Abstract
The fundamental changes, occurring in modern societies through the digitalization, are also changing the way citizens interact with their governments. With more than 70% of citizens using the internet to retrieve information, websites become a crucial touchpoint for the public's interaction with administrations. The design and quality of these websites and services offered through them may have a considerable impact on the user's willingness to further engage with public administrations online. This article sets out to evaluate the German state capitals' websites with regard to their e-government maturity. We use a maturity evaluation scheme that considers five aspects of e-government: information, communication, transaction, integration, and participation. The results indicate that there is a substantial variety in the websites' maturity, horizontally as well as vertically. All cities perform well in furnishing information and make use of various communication channels. Transactional services, however, are less developed across all analyzed cities.

Keywords
e-government; maturity; website; citizen