Accessibility Declaration
This web site has been totally built in XHTML in compliance with the guidelines of the Ministry for Innovation and Technologies, according to which public bodies must adopt quality and accessibility principles (Act Stanca n.4 of 9th January 2004 and relevant enforcement regulations Presidential Decree n. 75 of 1st March 2005) in favour of “people disabled to information technologies”.
All Web site pages comply with W3C specifications both in regard to the XHTML code (1.0 Strict) and the CSS code (each Web site page has been tested by W3C validators and each page is XHTML Valid and CSS Valid, see their logos at the foot of the page). They comply also with the guidelines 1.0 with regard to their Double A level accessibility.
The lettering has been studied in order to be the most pleasant possible to have, fast to use and easy to remember.
All Web site pages have a “fluid format” (called also “liquid”). This means that, whatever the user’s display screen resolution might be, the Web Site automatically adjusts to this resolution. The Web site layout and the internal layout of each page (images with a text on their side, texts in more columns, etc.) are obtained without using tables (tableless) and by resorting only to a layout based on CSSs.
The Web site is therefore “elastic”, since all units of measurement are proportional and this allows users to enlarge or make smaller the texts of each page as they like. For instance, with Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can use the menu View/Character/Large in order to make medium size characters larger.
The internal structure which has been adopted implies that the content of each page – after the Consorzio Zip Logo– always comes before the fixed parts (left side and right side columns) so that the “interpreters” used by disabled users might immediately gain access to the main subject. And when users want to print it, the system allows them to avoid printing the headpiece photos, the navigation menu and the part below the Consorzio address.
All the colours that have been chosen contrast with one another enough to be readable even in black and white, whereas the navigation itself does not require any use of colour (ex.: “click the red button if you wish ...”) in order to help people suffering from achromatism.
Users can always orient themselves within the Web site without any problem: in the menus, the button concerning the area where you are is always lit; furthermore, the path is always highlighted at the beginning of the middle column, (ex: >home > news >you are in news 14.05.06) so that you might navigate backwards. You can go back to the menu also by clicking the Zip logo which always appears at the top of each page on the left hand side. However, the interactive scheme included in “site map” is the main tool whereby you can orient yourself within the Web site and gain a direct access to its pages of any level.
Where possible, all the abbreviations have been accompanied by the elements ACRONYM and ABBR. All pictures have an alternative text (ALT) for sightless people or those who wish to navigate without downloading pictures (any visitor can see it by setting the mouse pointer on the picture).
In order to allow users to navigate within the Web site without using the mouse, menus can be selected by combining the keys ALT (for Apple users, the key to be combined is CMD) + letter underlined in the button (accesskey). A navigation system through the key TAB has also been applied, with a page layout which should allow a clear and correct navigation.
Web sites based on XHTML and CSS are very complex to build because of the bad support which the main available browsers offer to these technologies. In order to bypass this problem, the best compromise has been adopted so that pages might be readable also by using different versions of the browsers Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla and Opera.
Each test has been carried out at the resolutions 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024. At each resolution the navigation has been carried out by setting medium-size, then large-size and finally extra large-size characters.
Despite the numerous tests carried out, one or more pages of the Web site might be difficult for some categories of users to gain access to or might not be totally free from technical anomalies. Hoping to receive timely notifications, you should bear in mind that accessibility is a path, not a goal.
