Law 4 of January 9, 2004 containing provisions to promote access by disabled people to information technology instruments requires the following to be established through a decree issued by the Minister for Innovation and Technologies (Art. 11):

a) guidelines containing the different accessibility levels and technical requirements;

b) the technical methodologies used to verify the accessibility of Web sites, as well as the assisted evaluation programs that can be used for this purpose.

The definition of the technical requirements referred to at point a) provides a benchmark for Public Administrations:

1. in procedures for the procurement of IT goods and services since, all other conditions in the evaluation of the technical features on offer being equivalent, meeting these requirements shall grant preferential status – Art. 4(1);
2. in drawing up contracts for the creation and modification of Web sites, since these requirements must be met or the contracts shall be considered void – Art. 4(2);
3. in drawing up renewals, amendments to or novation of any such contracts already in force on the date the decree takes effect, again with voidance of such agreements if the requirements are not met – Art. 4(2);
4. in awarding public grants for the purchase of IT goods and services to be used by disabled workers or the public, including the installation of telework-stations, since eligibility for such grants is subject to compliance with these requirements – Art. 4(3).

The technical-scientific Secretariat of the "Standing Interministerial Committee for the use of ICT by vulnerable or disadvantaged groups" is organized in several Work Groups. Among the members of these Work Groups there are experts belonging to Central and Local Public Administrations, disabled associations, CNR, University, associations of hardware and software manufacturers and experts in accessible design.

The Work Groups put contributions and studies forward in order to support the drafting of the Ministerial Decree provided for in Art. 11 of Law 4/2004.

It follows that technical requirements and accessibility levels must be defined for:

• IT goods, taken broadly to mean hardware, basic software, user programs, etc;
• Internet Web sites, for which accessibility verification methodologies must be established.

The two workgroups named "Methodology" and "Technical Rules" produced the following "Study on the guidelines containing technical requirements for different accessibility levels and technical methodologies for verifying website accessibility" which is a document that aims at the development, creation and evaluation of Web sites.

The principles informing the guidelines, technical requirements and methodologies presented are based on the Resolutions, Directives, Communications and Decisions of the European Union with respect to non-discrimination and accessibility to new technologies for people with disabilities.

In the layout of this document the following terms refer to the definitions given in the Law and in the Implementation Regulations:

• accessibility: the capability of computer systems, in accordance with the attained technological knowledge and its limits, to supply services and to provide information which can be availed of, without discrimination, also by those who need supporting technologies or special configurations because of some disability - Article 2(1)(a) of Law 4/2004;
• assistive technologies: the tools and the technical hardware and software solutions that enable disabled users to overcome or reduce the initial disadvantages in accessing the information and the services supplied by computer systems – Art. 2(1)(b) of Law 4/2004;
• technical check: evaluation conducted by experts on the basis of technical parameters even with computer tools – Art. 1 of the Implementation Regulations;
• subjective check: evaluation of the quality level of services which have already been found accessible by the technical check. This evaluation must be carried out involving the end user, disabled too, on the basis of empirical remarks – Art. 1 of the Implementation Regulations;
• usability: the capability of a service to meet criteria of simplicity and ease of use, efficiency, congruity with users' needs, pleasantness, and satisfaction in the use of a product – Art. 1 of the Implementation Regulations;

In reference to Article 2 of the Implementation Regulations (Criteria and general principles of accessibility), the study is divided in two parts:

• the first, relative to the “technical check”, refers to content accessibility;
• the second part, relative to the “subjective check”, refers to information and services usability in terms of:
  • simplicity and ease of use
  • efficiency
  • effectiveness
  • user satisfaction

In the first part of the study 22 requirements are defined. These requirements are to be verified by the technical check and for this purpose some methodological criteria are suggested.

The technical requirements apply to contents which are displayed by a browsers. The technical requirements must be applied both to the technological and structural side of the content itself (for example the used markup language or the objects which are present in a page) and to the editorial side (for example the visual presentation of the informative content throughout images, colours and multimedia objects).

Meeting these requirements is the minimum compulsory accessibility level for Internet Web sites, regardless the fact they supply information or services.

The technical requirements also apply to all of the cases in which the subjects listed in Article 3 of the Law supply information or services using Internet technologies both via online computer systems belonging to Intranets or Extranets and via offline storage media like CD-ROMs or DVDs.

In the selection and statement of the requirements and in the proposed methodology for the technical evaluation, the following were taken into account:

• the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendations and in particular in those relating to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI);
• the standards set forth in paragraph 1194.22 of Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act;
• the accessibility standards and technical specifications drawn up by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO);
• the experience gained by the Italian government through the implementation of the AIPA (Authority for Information Technology in Government, now the National Centre for Information Technology in Government (CNIPA)) Circular of 6 September 2001 and Minister Stanca’s Directive of 30 May 2002 concerning the .gov.it domain.

The second part of the study concerns the “subjective check” and its evaluation methodology.

The definition of usability provided in the Implementation Regulations is strongly inspired by the definition of Quality defined by Standard ISO/IEC 9126-1 and also refers to the definition of usability given by Standard ISO 9241-11.

On the basis of these references, and on the basis of the remarks and conclusions stated by the “Methodology” workgroup, a methodology for the subjective evaluation of the different quality levels of Web sites has been suggested. This methodology is based on twelve essential criteria which are directly borrowed from the quality and usability principles defined by the Standards and scientific literature.

With reference to the Implementation regulations, the conformity with the 22 requirements to be met in the technical check is a prerequisite to carry out the subjective evaluation of a website.