SICE Portal

Accessibility

SICE has considered removing any barriers that could impede this objective to be a priority goal. For this reason, making the most of the opportunities offered by current technology, the company has decided to make the effort necessary to build a website for all, without excluding any persons who for reasons of any physical or sensorial limitations, or who lack the latest technologies, could experience usability problems.

In this regard, the SICE website has been validated with the AA certificate, in accordance with the guidelines of the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative), an international working group under the auspices of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) that strives to ensure that no group suffers any discrimination of any kind that could be the cause of social fractures in the virtual world.

Our express concern about eliminating any barriers that could impede anybody’s access to any of the information and services offered by SICE on the company’s website means we must comply with a large number of basic premises when preparing and designing its current and future content. These premises can be summarised as follows:

The use of a clear, simple hierarchical structure to organise the content of the site, to assure ease of comprehension and browsing.
The use of properly identified programming and design elements that are fully accessible for those user visiting the site under restricted condition, using the help tools provided by standard browsers, and for those who are obliged to use devices with special characteristics, such as screen readers, text browsers, etc.
Conceiving processes as successions of actions that are intelligible in their own right and fully accessible, such that all of them can be completed regardless of whatever sensorial, physical or technological conditioning factors the user may be affected by.
Usability and accessibility

SICE’s objective of bringing the services we offer within everyone’s reach is manifested by this concept of a usable, accessible website, i.e. devising a site that allows all users to make full use of their possibilities, easily and without restrictions.

This requirement matches those of the WAI’s AA certificate, i.e. never including any elements or processes that could impede the use of the site’s services or content for any groups, or that make their use so difficult that many people would be unable to enjoy them. With a view to achieving this goal, the following principles were taken into consideration:

Never use only purely visual elements when offering users information included on each page. This means avoiding presenting information that depends on images or colours in order to be read and understood or, that would be lost when using a monochrome browser, or that would make no sense when using a screen reader.
Use standard formats whenever possible, using relative rather than absolute units, to assure consistency and uniformity when defining page formats., thereby assuring the use of functionalities that facilitate the reading of the pages by people with impaired vision, such as increasing font sizes.
Present information by organising and making content available in such a way that its hierarchical structure becomes quite clear solely by reading the textual information provided, thereby ensuring that the information is presented with the same structure and clarity on any device used to access the website.
Avoid the use of options that execute any actions not directly controlled by the user, when the user is browsing specific areas on the page. This ensures that at all times any user browsing with a screen reader will maintain sufficient control of the browsing process and position within the site, without having to face any options as pop-up windows, automatic updates or automatic bookmarks, which could lead to browsing errors.
Avoid the use of elements included for the sole purpose of achieving a certain visual structure but that distort the order of reading the informative content on the page, such as citation markup to force indentation or tables to force layout. This ensures that the logical sequence of the information presented is not broken if the user is browsing with a screen reader.
Adequately identify all the pages on the site and the elements included and browsing tools offered, named appropriately according to their location, destinations and functionalities. This ensures that wherever the user may be on the site there will be a clear, unequivocal reference to the exact location and any subsequent destination available, as well as any operating options that are available if a screen reader is being used.
Label all editing fields and number correctly all processes where they are integrated, as well as distributing them in such a way that a logical reading order is followed whenever the user is browsing with a screen reader. This ensures that all users can obtain the information intended by SICE.