Young People’s Views of Municipality Websites: Use, Attitudes, and Perception of Quality

The present paper investigates public sector websites in Norway by focusing on municipalities. Norway consists of 422 municipalities each of which has its own website. To help inform the increasing investments and use of technologies within eGovernment, this study focuses on young people’s perceptions of municipality websites. Today’s young people constitute a key user group in the coming years. The following research questions are investigated: (1) How frequently do young people visit municipality websites and for what reasons? (2) Do young people prefer physical meetings or online communication when interacting with municipalities? (3) How do young people perceive the quality of municipality websites, when evaluating content, design, and usability? An online survey was conducted with undergraduate students (n = 200) in Norway. Findings suggest that young adults do not widely use municipality websites and that they visit primarily to search for specific information or use digital services. Results also suggest that young adults prefer digital interaction over face-to-face communication, and email and chat are their most favored ways to interact with the public sector. They consider paper-based communication undesirable. Participants ranked the quality of municipality websites as moderate to good but were not overwhelmingly positive. The paper ends with concluding remarks and suggestions for future research.