e-Gov and the queue for the elderly: an undergraduate thesis studies accessibility barriers in digital public services
Fabiana Luiza Vasconcelos Pfeilsticker Ribas defended at FCTE/UnB an undergraduate thesis analyzing the accessibility of Brazilian digital public services for elderly people — an agenda that gained urgency with the accelerated digitalization during the pandemic.
Brasília, September 27, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed public services onto digital at accelerating speed — and made visible an old debt with those who join that infrastructure later. The undergraduate thesis defended in September 2022 by Fabiana Luiza Vasconcelos Pfeilsticker Ribas takes that context to analyze how Brazilian e-Gov services respond — or fail to respond — to the needs of elderly people, advised by Prof. Ricardo Ajax Dias Kosloski .
The work begins from a demographic fact: Brazil is ageing, and with that grows the number of citizens whose relationship with screens was not built out of prior intimacy. Studying e-Gov accessibility in that slice is therefore about protecting the right to service — not merely the right to technology. The author conducts a case study centered on real interfaces, mapping concrete barriers to reading, navigation, and feedback that reduce senior users’ autonomy.
The theme connects digital transformation to public policy debates: without an accessibility plan, each new wave of digitalization multiplies exclusions that already cost a lot in in-person service. The thesis serves as an empirical basis to reframe decisions that keep being taken in technical panels far removed from the everyday lives of those who depend on the service.
The full text — written in Portuguese — is available at the UnB Undergraduate Theses Digital Library.
About CEDIS: The Center for Studies, Development, and Innovation in Software (CEDIS), linked to the University of Brasília, researches and develops innovative software solutions.