Just over a quarter of Maltese people use eGovernment services and more than half admit they prefer traditional face-to-face services.
Moreover, although more than six out of 10 people have a government-issued electronic ID, only four of them use it to access online services.
This emerges from a study by the Malta Information Technology Agency.
Malta ranked first across the EU for both availability and usability in the European Commission’s eGovernment Benchmark Report last year.
However, addressing a seminar announcing the results of the study yesterday, Mita executive chairman Tony Sultana said there was still a major deficit in terms of actual use.
“We’ve previously assumed that when you launch a service, people will know how to use it. Our services lose credibility if they are cumbersome to use,” he pointed out.
Project leader Sarah Farrugia said research showed part of the reason for the low use was lack of uniformity and pleasant aesthetics across eGovernment services.
She said that although general feedback was that the services were convenient, efficient and easy to use, participants demanded clearer guidelines, easier ways to discover and navigate content and better search functionality.
Our services lose credibility if they are cumbersome to use
Project coordinator Joanne Deguara said the study ran in tandem with an outreach programme that included video tutorials and a three-month awareness campaign.
She said that the aim was to see an 8.5 per cent increase in use by December 2016 as well as a national action plan based on the project’s finding.
Ms Deguara said that Mita would be making several recommendations towards such a plan.
These would include more mobile-friendly services and the introduction of a system whereby users would only have to input their data once to access all services.
Competitiveness Parliamentary Secretary José Herrera said online tools were a way to increase the efficiency of government services.
“The challenge right now is not the technological infrastructure but ensuring users are taking full advantage of what is actually available,” he said.
Dr Herrera said that more than 400 public officials had benefited from training in the last year, to ensure they were equipped to guide citizens and pass on the government’s message.
He called for such training to be given more importance and expressed his satisfaction at the progress being made towards reaching the goals listed in the government’s digital strategy.