Data Triangulation in Action: Using Comment Analysis to Refine Web Quality Metrics

This paper focuses on the evaluation of quality perceptions from users of an electronic government website. As government organizations have begun to enhance transparency, communicate and interact with citizens via the Web, developing appropriate online services has demanded heightened understanding of the requirements of users and appropriate tailoring of solutions. The site examined in the paper enables the online submission of self-assessed tax returns in the UK. Survey data collected via the eQual instrument were used to statistically model the perceptions of site users. However, in addition to quantitative data, we also collected open comments from respondents, and it is these comments that provide the crux of this paper. Such comments, via data triangulation, provided much more insight into the perceptions of site quality than the statistical data alone. The results of the comment analysis both support the instrument and point to additional factors determining the perceptions of quality of such e-government services requiring attention in the instrument development. The paper rounds off with a conclusions and an agenda for future research in this area.