What is accessibility?

Accessibility of Internet sites is intended as a combination of techniques that renders the information content of a website accessible to anyone, attempting to eliminate obstacles, either of a technical nature or relating to a disability: computer not updated, different browsers and video resolutions, visual, motor and perceptive difficulties.
For those interested in this matter we provide some useful links to start from:     

• Further information on the accessibility of the website can be gathered on WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) on the website of the international point of reference of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
• The section dedicated to the Law 04/2004 of the official website dedicated to accessibility: Pubbliaccesso (italian language Website). 

The accessibility is a roadmap

The accessibility of a website represent a kind of road map of a process starting from the project of the website and continues to the end involving also the maintenance of the website: keeping updated and bettering day by day the accessibility of our website is an ambitious commitment which we consider an absolute necessity.
For this reason numerous control points have been included in our production standards relating to this aspect, not to obtain just a mere formal certification, but to contribute in an active manner to the right of every person to have access in a complete, efficient and satisfactory manner to the necessary information.
To help us effectively pursue our aims, do not hesitate to advise us on potential improvements.

Valid code

The obligatory starting point, in our opinion, is to create a page with features set by international standards (W3C).
In accordance with W3C, the website has been realised in XHTML 1.0 (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) code, making a clear distinction between information and layout, by utilising the CSS 2.1 (Cascading Style Sheets) code. The applied codes have been tested through control programmes released by W3C.

In order to avoid technical barriers we have realised the website in accordance to the guide lines nr.1 set by WCAG 1.0 of W3C and partially also to nr.2 and nr.3 (we believe we have reached a  standard of A+).

The Italian legislation

The standards applied to the technical solutions of the website are in accordance to the approved reference Italian "Stanca" law.

Although not part of law, the objective of the project was that of respecting as far as possible the 22 requisites, as we are convinced that a universal access must be an unconditional objective of every site, and this is one of the principal directives of our Web work group.

The chromatic relations between the text and background were verified with JuicyStudio, attempting to guarantee the best legibility possible in relation to the colours utilised.

Unfortunately, it was not always possible to have a complete control of the fonts, thus there exist some accessibility limitations that must be taken into account:    

• of some programming objects imported from external sites (the Java applet for the updating of stock exchange information, for example) we cannot guarantee an efficient level of accessibility;    
• it was not always possible to obtain subtitling of the multimedia documents present in the site (mp4, avi);
• in order to use the page "Where we are", “Plants map”, Javascript must be activated. As this multimedia object is un-accessible, the fundamental information regarding the addresses of Hera companies has been made available to screen readers with skip.

A careful design to the differences

The capacity to adapt to the requirements of each user is an important requisite: for this the control of formal aspects (the presentation of contents) through the style sheets, together with a design calculated in percentages, permits the obtaining of a "liquid" page, or rather capable of adapting to the size of the screen available.
In the same manner, the site was utilised with the most widespread browsers, thus obtaining a practical universal support, that is adapted to the preferences of each user:     

• PC: Internet Explorer 8, 7 e 6, FireFox 3.6;  
• Mac: Safari, FireFox;    
• Linux: FireFox and Konqueror.

In addition there were included different resolutions (from 1024x768 up), to obtain the most accurate and stable aspect possible in all conditions.

Proportional measures were used to define the size of various characters: this permits each user to resize the text through their browser.

The maximum reachable size with character was between 250 and 300% of the base size, thus permitting people with visual problems to considerably enlarge the text on the pages, and have reduced difficulty in reading.

Practical verification through screen reader

In relation to the screen reader, to have a real feedback on the effective accessibility of the site for blind users, use was made of the most widespread programmes in Italy that are in fact the standard utilised by the majority of users:Jaws of Freedom Scientific.

Utility for surfing (skip, tabindex, headings, accesskeys)

In relation to ease of surfing, we have introduced the so-called "skip": this shortcut permits the skipping of the reading of repetitive surfing mechanisms (such as menus), to directly access the contents of pages.

The level of the headings have been inserted: this shortening identifies the logical levels sub-dividing the page, in order to create a further surfing path, passing directly from the primary content (the heading of the page) to those following on, in order of importance (in our case, the first and second level menu items).
This solution thus permits an outline in a rigorous manner and at the same time an immediate architecture of the contents.

Finally, to improve the rapidity of the viewing, keyboard shortcuts were introduced (so-called "accesskey"), attempting to conform - in the absence of a formal standard - to the majority usage on the Internet.
The combination provides for the simultaneous use of the key ALT (or of CTRL for users of Apple), together with the following number keys (if using Internet Explorer it will be necessary to also use the ENTER key to activate the command):

Keys for the principal surfing:    

• ALT + 1 = Go to the beginning of contents ("skip" function) 
• ALT + H = Return to home page
• ALT + C = Go to search input

Page updated 27 August 2010