Accessibility statement for Destination North East England
This accessibility statement applies to Destination North East England’s website https://destinationnortheastengland.co.uk/ .
This website is run by NewcastleGateshead Initiative/ Destination North East England.
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 400% 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.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible this website is
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
- some videos 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 ‘contact us’ page
Feedback and contact information
If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: info@dnee.co.uk
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:
- email [info@dnee.co.uk]
- call [+44 (0)191 440 5761]
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.
If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us for directions via the details listed above.
Enforcement procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) 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, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
NewcastleGateshead Initiative 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
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the broadest possible audience, regardless of ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide WebConsortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) atthe AA level.
These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible topeople with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilises various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilise an accessibility interface that allows persons with special disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilises an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimises its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts its functionality and behaviour for screen-readers used by blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
Screen-reader and keyboard navigationOur website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various behavioural changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers can read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively.
Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements:
Screen-reader optimisation: we run a process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images. It provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts embedded within the image using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with popular screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack.
Keyboard navigation optimisation: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML and adds various behaviours using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and with the Spacebar or Enter key. Additionally, keyboard users will nd content-skip menus available at any time by clicking Alt+2, or as the first element of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, not allowing the focus to drift outside.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus),
“H” (headings),
“F”(forms),
“B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to special c elements.
Disability profiles supported on our website
Epilepsy Safe Profile: this profile enables people with epilepsy to safely use the website by eliminating the risk of seizures resulting from flashing or blinking animations and risky colour combinations.
Vision Impaired Profile: this profile adjusts the website so that it is accessible to the majority of visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Profile: this profile provides various assistive features to help users with cognitive disabilities such as Autism, Dyslexia, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements more easily.
ADHD Friendly Profile: this profile significantly reduces distractions and noise to help people with ADHD, and Neurodevelopmental disorders browse, read, and focus on the essential elements more easily.
Blind Users Profile (Screen-readers): this profile adjusts the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is installed on the blind user’s computer, and this site is compatible with it.
Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to special c elements. Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments
Font adjustments – users can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
Colour adjustments – users can select various colour contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap colour schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds with over seven different colouring options.
Animations – epileptic users can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasise essential elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
Cognitive disorders – we utilise a search engine linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
Additional functions – we allow users to change cursor colour and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.
Assistive technology and browser compatibility
We aim to support as many browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS, and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and MAC users.Notes, comments, and feedback
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating, improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility following technological advancements.
Compliance status
The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) [2.1] AA standard.
(b) This website is compliant with the [Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.
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. For example, we do not plan to fix [example of non-essential document].
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.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 26 February 2024. It was last reviewed on 26 February 2024.
This website was last tested on 26 February 2024 against the WCAG [2.1] AA standard.
The test was carried out by the AccessScan service by AccessiBe. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team.
