WCAG 2.1 Audit of Bangladeshi E-Government Accessibility: A Maturity Model for Digital Inclusion

This study audits 47 Bangladeshi government e-services across 74 websites, evaluating 1,534 user-critical pages for WCAG 2.1 compliance using automated and manual methods. A total of 14,308 violations were identified, primarily affecting screen reader, keyboard-only, and low-vision users. Common issues included missing form labels (23.6%), contrast failures (15.0%), and structural errors. Violations were most concentrated in education, social protection, and civil registration services. The proposed Accessibility Maturity Model classifies 51.1% of services as Beginner-tier, accounting for nearly 98% of issues. Findings highlight critical accessibility gaps and call for targeted remediation, training, and enforcement aligned with Bangladesh’s 2022 accessibility guideline.