Best practice in web design

In Northern Ireland, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people through your website. This applies to websites offering goods, services or facilities to the public.

In practice, this means that your website must be designed in a way that allows disabled people to access it, eg by using auxiliary aids or services such as screen readers.

Elsewhere in the UK, the Equality Act 2010 replaced the DDA, but similar duties apply. 

Why web accessibility matters

Accessibility means designing websites that people with visual, hearing, mobility or cognitive impairments can use. Almost 1 in 5 people in Northern Ireland have a disability (2025 data). Good accessibility improves your site's usability for everyone, boosts SEO and widens your customer base. 

Follow Web Accessibility Standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has produced accepted accessibility guidelines for websites. These set out three levels of conformance:

•  A (priority 1) – the minimum level of access has been met
• AA (priority 2) – an acceptable level of access has been met
• AAA (priority 3) – a completely accessible website

The UK government recommends that websites must satisfy priority 1 and should satisfy priority 2 of the guidelines.

Check if your website is accessible

You can use a range of free online tools and services to check if your site is accessible. Examples of these tools include WAVE and Lighthouse (in Chrome DevTools) for automatic testing. Test manually with a screen reader like NVDA (free) or VoiceOver (Mac).

Make reasonable adjustments for disabled website users

If your website isn't accessible, it may put a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage compared to people who are not disabled. You may be required under the DDA to make 'reasonable adjustments'.

This means that, by law, you must:

• change a practice, policy or procedure that makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to use your service - eg using very small text that puts vision-impaired people at a disadvantage
• provide an auxiliary aid or service if it would enable (or make it easier for) disabled people to use the service - eg offering an alternative point and click interface for visitors that can't use a keyboard

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) has published a range of resources that deal with the rights of access to goods, facilities, services (including online services) and premises. These resources include:

• advisory guides for employers and service providers
• good practice videos
• publications and relevant codes of practice
• customisable templates, checklists and policies
• links to further help and advice from other organisations

Browse ECNI's resources on accessible goods and services and see suggestions of our best practices for accessible websites.

The WC3 website provides detailed guidance and resources on getting started with web accessibility.