Usability and Accessibility Evaluation of Banking Websites

Websites are used by almost all businesses as a competitive tool in this electronic media age. These websites have become a necessity and play a vital role to gather information and to provide different services and ease to their users. Therefore, the design and interface of websites should provide ease of use and satisfaction to their users in every aspect. The objective of this study is to evaluate the usability, accessibility and vulnerability issues in Pakistani and International Banking Websites. The evaluations were performed manually and by using automated tools. Also, a USE questionnaire was used to get users' perspectives. Results of the study show that majority of the websites do not adhere to usability principles leading to lack of user satisfaction. Similarly, the websites under the study do not follow WCAG 2.0 principles and guidelines. Considerable issues were also reported in vulnerability tests. Further, it was observed that International Banking Websites have achieved better results than Pakistani Banking Websites in terms of usability, accessibility and vulnerability. However, none of the websites passed all the tests with 100% result.