Accessibility Statement for Discover Northern Ireland

This accessibility statement applies to https://discovernorthernireland.com

This website is managed by Tourism Northern Ireland.

Tourism Northern Ireland is committed to making its website and applications accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
• zoom in up to 500% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
• We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

We’re also continually in the process of making the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet (opens in a new window) has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How Accessible this website is

We're always working on optimising our online user experience, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

ReachDeck - accessibility tool

Reachdeck adds speech, reading and translation support tools to online content. It works on all major browsers and platforms, including mobile phones and tablets. All features are accessed by clicking on the ‘speak’ option on the right hand side of the screen, which triggers an easy-to-use floating toolbar on all web pages. Note: The translation service uses a version of Google Translate which relies on translations already available online – for this reason it may not always be 100% accurate.

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

• you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• live video streams do not have captions
• you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
• there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our pages

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us via one of the following methods:

• the ‘Contact Us’ form on the website (opens on TourismNI.com)
• by calling us on 028 9023 1221
• by writing to us at: Tourism NI, Floors 10-12, Linum Chambers, Bedford Square, Bedford Street, Belfast, BT2 7ES.

If you would like to report an accessibility problem with the website, please use the details listed above.

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us on the details above for directions.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact us using one of the methods listed above.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.

Enforcement Procedure

The Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, you can get in touch with the ECNI via https://www.equalityni.org/contactus

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Tourism NI is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

• Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
• There is an issue in relation to some list elements which are not used semantically within ul or ol parent elements, and also incidences where there are direct children that are not allowed within the parent elements. This fails WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships.
• Link text is not always distinguishable without relying on colour. This fails WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 1.4.1 Use of Color.
• Some text and images do not have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between the background and the foreground to make it easy to read. This fails WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum).
• The magnifying glass, back to top, hamburger menu icon, language selector and heart icon functionality cannot be reached by keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard.
• It’s possible to navigate through items within the burger menu when it hasn’t been opened, and there is no visible focus indicator on the menu items. This fails WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 2.4.7 Focus Visible.
• Some components are missing valid name attributes, which provide correct names, roles, states, and values for assistive technologies. This fails Success Criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).
• Empty anchor elements mean there are missing descriptive names or context for all links.  This fails Success Criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A).
• Page Content can be missing descriptive headings and labels, which fails Success Criterion 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA).

These issues will be addressed in the new site build for DiscoverNorthernIreland.com, which is in progress. Once the site goes live on the new CMS (expected January 2026), these issues will no longer exist. Beyond that date, we will continue to monitor for accessibility issues to be addressed by our developers or in-house team, and we will regularly scan our site with accessibility software to optimise the online experience for all our visitors.

Disproportionate burden

The following list will be updated with further issues classified as "disproportionate burden" as we become aware of them. 

Navigation and accessing information

• There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).
• It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content.
• It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the new site goes live on the updated CMS in January 2026.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We're in the process of developing an accessibility roadmap. This will show how and when we plan to further improve accessibility on this website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22nd September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22^nd May 2025, and is scheduled for further review on 22^nd May 2026.

This website was last tested on 22^nd May 2025 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

The test was carried out by a member of the Social & Digital unit within Tourism NI. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.