Accessibility

Accessibility and use of the site

The accessibility of a website is the result of a set of techniques and attentions of design, construction and maintenance, aimed at making the contents potentially reachable by anyone, trying to eliminate obstacles to fruition, obstacles deriving from different objective conditions and conditions personal details: to name a few, outdated computers, different browsers and video resolutions, slow connections, visual, motor or perceptive difficulties, but also simple visual defects, tiredness, non-optimal conditions of use (exposure to chaotic or noisy areas).

A path

Making a website accessible is not a point of arrival, but a demanding path that involves every moment of its creation, from design to maintenance: we know that maintaining this standard over time is certainly an ambitious goal, but the need for which remains beyond question.
The activity of creating and maintaining a site is subject to numerous variables (the wide typology of contents, the possible disabilities, the different hardware and software configurations, the speed with which the same tools of use change over time, the preparation and the sensitivity of the editors), therefore some pages may not be fully usable, incomplete or distorted.

Compliance with legislative provisions on accessibility


The aim of the project is compliance with the Stanca Law on accessibility Law n. 4 of 9 January 2004, "Provisions to facilitate access by disabled persons to IT tools" and the decree of 20 March 2013 "Amendments to Annex A of the decree of 8 July 2005 of the Minister for Innovation and Technologies, stating: « Technical requirements and the different levels for accessibility to IT tools" (Prot. 195/Ric) (13A07492) (GU General Series n.217 of 16-9-2013), which transpose and are based on WCAG 2.0.

A design that pays attention to differences


The ability to adapt to the needs of each user is an important requirement: for this reason, the control of the formal aspects (the presentation of the contents) through the CSS style sheets, combined with a design capable of adapting to the different settings of the user, allows to use the contents with a correct layout and without loss of information.
 
Likewise, the site has been tested with the most popular browsers to obtain a constant and accurate appearance in all conditions, using "responsive" techniques to define the size and arrangement of the contents on the page.
 
The different pages have been tested with the following browsers and related operating systems:

  • Windows platform: Internet Explorer 9-10-11, FireFox latest version, Chrome latest version, Safari latest version, Opera latest version;
  • Apple platform: Safari latest version, FireFox latest version, Chrome latest version;
  • Linux platform: FireFox latest version, Chrome latest version;
  • Tablet/Mobile: iOS and Android 4.0.

Navigation utility

With a view to facilitated navigation, we have introduced the so-called "skip": this trick allows you to skip reading repetitive navigation mechanisms (such as menus for example), to directly access the contents of the pages; furthermore, to improve the speed of consultation, some keyboard shortcuts (the so-called "accesskeys") have been introduced.
The combinations involve the simultaneous use of ALT (+shift for Firefox users) or CTRL (for Apple users), together with the following alphanumeric keys (if you use Internet Explorer you will also need to press ENTER to activate the command):

  • Key 1: reserved for direct access to the main content of the page;
  • Key 2: reserved for direct access to the site menu;
  • C key: go to the editing field of the site search form;
  • H key: returns to the initial page of the site (function present only on internal pages).

Note for Apple users: you need to activate the "All controls" option reachable from System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts.

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