Accessibility
Accessibility policy of www.pamplona.es
Pamplona City Council intends its portal to be accessible and useful to the greatest possible number of people regardless of their personal or technological limitations.
To this end, we base ourselves on the application of and compliance with the Accessibility Guidelines or General Principles of Accessible Design established by the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
In its migration towards accessibility, Pamplona City Council adopts the following approach:
- Gradual migration in 2005 of the existing contents and services on the non-accessible portal www.pamplona.es towards accessibility level A.
- Development in 2006 of a version in which, insofar as possible, most of the contents and services are accessible to level AA.
- Progressive incorporation of new services and transformation of existing services in order to attain, insofar as possible, level AAA.
If you find a problem of accessibility or wish to make a comment or suggestion regarding this subject, do not hesitate to get in touch with us at: pamplona@pamplona.es
What is accessibility ?
Accessible Web pages are understood to be those which can be used correctly by the greatest possible number of people with all degrees of accessibility.
Why is it important to make Web pages accessible?
People, particularly those with some kind of disability, have difficulty using the Internet due to various obstacles found on Web pages and the applications used: browsers, multimedia devices, screen readers, voice synthesisers, etc.
Some examples of the problems users find on Web pages are:
- Images without alternative text
- Absence of alternative text on image maps
- Incorrect use of elements which form the page
- Sounds without subtitles or images without descriptions.
- Lack of alternatives for users with browsers which do not support frames, scripts or applets.
- Tables which cannot be interpreted properly when read linearly
- Pages with poor colour contrast
- etc
Which users benefit from accessible pages?
The relationship between accessibility and disability is not direct. On the one hand, not all disabilities affect Internet access (for example, difficulty walking); on the other hand, there are problems which hinder access, but are not considered disabilities (for example, difficulty reading small letters). Additionally, not all Internet users have updated versions of all the programmes and devices available. Consequently, there are users with:
- devices such as voice translators, Braille, without sound cards or text-mode browsers.
- difficulty distinguishing colours or users with monochrome systems.
- sight problems which require the Web site font size to be enlarged.
- photosensitive epilepsy.
- outdated browsers or very new, but not widespread browsers, or who have disabled certain services on their browsers.
- motor difficulties which mean they are unable to interact with moving objects.
- a device other than a mouse
- screens of sizes other than standard PC screens (mobile phones, Palms, etc.)
- cognitive difficulties.
In general, all Internet users benefit from accessible pages because they are easy to use and trouble-free.
What are the W3C and the WAI?
The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is a neutral body which oversees the development of the Internet and its standards.
The WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) is a work group on Accessibility created by the W3C.
In May 1999, this group published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, a document which contains accessibility guidelines to comply with up to 3 different levels (Level A, priority 1, Level AA, priority 2, and Level AAA, priority 3). It also created content checklists for the guidelines and techniques to comply with these guidelines.
What do the guidelines of accessibility consist of?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are based on 14 general guidelines (later divided into 65 points), forming the general principles for accessible design.
These guidelines are aimed at Web site designers, those who check Web sites to verify their accessibility and organisations which wish to make their sites accessible or are interested in permitting people with disabilities access to the information on their sites.
What level of accessibility does this Web site have?
www.pamplona.es complies with level AA.
As the portal is multilingual, the language it is presently in is indicated at the beginning of each page. Changes in language are indicated by span elements, although the amount of different data sources used to make this Web site means that odd words in languages other than the declared language may appear unidentified through error or omission.
The records of the Plenary Sessions held since 1994 are published in html generated by Microsoft Word 2000. Not all of the content of all the documents is accessible because it is in the original format of the agreement. The html documents which are a reflection of original documents generated by Microsoft Word 2000 are, in general, not accessible.
Press releases are given in two formats: PDF and Word. These two formats are used in order to facilitate publication in the media.
There are more than 6,000 links to pages external to www.pamplona.es. The accessibility of these pages cannot be guaranteed.
Those applications which are aimed at a specific number of identified users, and are protected by password, are not accessible. This is due to the technical difficulty involved in their conversion and the fact that these users can currently access all of the functionalities that they require.
The “Virtual Visit” is not accessible because it has spherical images (360º) of different parts of Pamplona and it is possible to move around inside these.
The Consult the Municipal Archive application is not accessible. An accessible version has been ordered from the company which developed it.
The information published in PDF can be recognised by voice browsers with the accessibility plug-in for the Adobe Acrobat reader
Given the volume and different sources of the PDF files published on the Municipal Web site, we have not been able to convert them properly to PDF-accessible format. They are presently being migrated, although files which do not satisfy the accessibility guidelines may still be found.
Technical help
How can I find my way around at www.pamplona.es?
There are 4 links to the 4 main sections on the header so that you can go straight to any of these sections. These links have keyboard accelerators in order to change from one section to another easily and quickly. Links to the Site map, language change and search engine also appear. The Municipal Coat of Arms in the top left-hand corner is a link to the home page.
The 4 large sections are:
- The Council: containing institutional and internal organisation sections.
- The City: containing information about Pamplona as a whole.
- Tourism: with specific information for visitors to Pamplona
- Procedural formalities: Formalities on-line, form downloads, procedural queries, etc.
The search engine text box permits free text searches through the pages of the Web site, although it does not search the html Plenary Session documents. The advanced search link provides access to a search engine menu which caters for searches by subject and text within each subject.
Beneath the links to the main sections, there is a browser bar, which indicates the route from the home page to the page visited by the user. This route does not necessarily coincide with the route followed by the user because there are many ways of reaching the same page. The route shown is the main route on the site map.
In the left-hand column of the interior pages, there is a menu of the options which can be reached from this page and, on the right, the contents of the page itself.
All of the elements indicated and shortcuts to the most relevant, most required procedures and information appear on the cover.
The news and agenda sections, and, in general, those with more dynamic contents are also published in RSS format so that they can be accessed from a feed reader.
How does the language change function work at www.pamplona.es?
Pamplona City Council’s Web site is multilingual (Spanish, Basque and English) and, insofar as possible, the contents are published in the 3 languages, with the same information structure
When the language is changed via the links on the header, you return to the same page or section you were previously on.
Opening external links
External links are opened in the same window you were browsing in. If you wish to open them in a new window, press the Capitals key when you click on the link. Accessibility cannot be guaranteed on these links.
Shortcut keys
There is a set of shortcut keys on the site to access different links immediately in order to make browsing easier.
In order to use these keys, press the ALT key at the same time as the letter which identifies each section. The letters identifying each section are:
- ALT + "1" Section: The council
- ALT + "2" Section: The city
- ALT + "3" Section: Tourism
- ALT + "4" Section: Procedural formalities
- ALT + "A" To access the Accessibility Policy
- ALT + "R" To activate the Recommend tool
- ALT + "I" To activate the Print tool
Acrobat accessible
In order to read PDF documents with voice browsers, you need the accessibility plug-in for the Adobe Acrobat reader.
Page containing information about Acrobat readers.