WAI in Italy: the Government Web site

Dear All,

a few weeks ago the Italian Government has approved a directive on Web content
accessibility (and on usability and organizational Web related matters) of 
public
sector sites.

It is a compromise, as most governmental documents are. It affirms:

"With a view to attaining a higher level of accessibility, all those in a 
condition to apply
the WCAG 1.0 guideline of the World Web Consortium (W3C) in all its 
details, as also
the verification procedures suggested therein, are hereby invited to 
complete the design
or restructuring of a site accordingly."

It also specifies ten "accessibility rules", that closely replicate the W3C 
"ten
tips", and that were added in part because it is not easy, in a very 
official document,
to reference another document written in a foreign language.

The fact that a compromise was needed, I think, could provoke some thoughts on
how to promote adoption of WCAG 1.0 (2.0, etc.) within complex governamental
organizations, and on whether focusing on a narrowly defined concept of 
adoption is
the best strategy to promote Web content accessibility in general.

However, while these issues are relevant and may constitue matter for 
discussion
in Honk Kong next month, I'm writing for more mundane reasons.

The main site of the Italian governement, http://www.governo.it
is currently undergoing restructuring to make it more accessible, as both 
WCAG 1.0
and, now, an Italian directive require.
We would be very grateful to whoever sends comments and criticisms on
the work in progress. One issue that the people working on the project are 
trying
to fix is fairly funny: when the site is seen using Explorer, page printing 
does not
work properly. Anyone has a clue on how to fix it?

The site (not all parts are complete) is accessible as follows:

http://194.242.231.57
username: wai
password: demo

(Please note that this site *is not* the official site of the Italian 
Government,
and that it is made public to the readership of this mailing list only for the
purposes declared in this message).

Thank you for any comments that you may provide. They would be put to good use:
this is the main public sector Web site in Italy, and it would lead the way 
to many
others.

best regards,

Lucio Picci


Lucio Picci
W3C Advisory Committee Representative: Presidenza del Consiglio dei 
Ministri, Italy
http://www.governo.it/sito_internet/w3c.html

Received on Monday, 9 April 2001 08:43:00 UTC