Table of contents
Siteimprove is a browser-based platform that assists users in evaluating their sites for digital accessibility. The platform uses a crawler on requested sites to check for accessibility barriers page by page based on criteria within the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Using dashboards and templated reports, Siteimprove then provides users with any current accessibility barriers that may exist on their sites along with a score that can be used to track accessibility progress. Learn more about digital accessibility and the tools available at UMD Digital Accessibility.
What score should I be aiming for?
Digital accessibility is a dynamic subject that can’t be determined by one score alone. The Siteimprove scoring system is a helpful reference towards how Siteimprove weighs various WCAG criteria, but does not encompass all the complexities of accessibility. Use your score as a point of reference in the progression of your digital accessibility journey.
How scores are calculated
When a barrier to accessibility is noted by the crawler, it is sorted into one of many categories of accessibility criteria. Each failure results in a reduction of points relative to the category overall.
Issues are these categorical types of accessibility barriers found on your site and are based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Success Criteria. If Siteimprove reports 13 issues for a site, this means that there are 13 categories of issues found on the site. These categories can range from a lack of alternative text to inappropriate use of WAI-ARIA labels.
Occurrences are the number of times that the issue occurs on the entire site. While there may be a minimum of one occurrence for each issue, there are often many more. Taking the number of occurrences into consideration is key to fully understanding the accessibility barrier found on a site.
Siteimprove scores are calculated out of 100.00, with each Level A and Level AA issues weighted at 1.57 points each. The number of times an element on the page is inaccessible is measured against the number of that element total (e.g., 30 images without alternative text vs. 100 images total).
Example:
A department on campus has a large site with 20,000 links. When utilizing Siteimprove, the crawler flags 5,000 links as having no text alternative (meaning that there is no accessible name for screen readers to inform the user of what the purpose of the link is).
All 5,000 links are flagged as one issue that can be viewed as either one large list or by page where the issue occurs. When weighted as one issue, those 5,000 occurrences total a decrease in overall score of 0.39 points. For users, however, that means 5,000 occurrences of encountering links that they are unable to navigate.
I have my score–what now?
Once you have your score, you have a reference point as you begin to resolve your issues. Determine whether issues found by Siteimprove should be resolved by content stewards or developers. Instructions on how to find issues and occurrences of issues are below.
Where to Find Issues
Dashboards
Siteimprove has multiple dashboards that highlight elements on which your sites are evaluated. The following is a list of dashboards that can be used in evaluating accessibility issues:
- UMD DIT Accessibility Report: Created by DIT’s Digital Accessibility team to highlight pages with issues and PDF accessibility.
- Accessibility Report: Created by Siteimprove to highlight issue categories, progress on issues over time, and pages with issues.
- Accessibility Priority Issues: Created by Siteimprove to highlight accessibility issues in PDFs and other documents.
- Alt Text Dashboard: Created by SIteimprove to highlight accessibility issues related to images and their alternate text.
Accessibility tab
The Accessibility tab has multiple options for accessing your issues. Utilize the following options for accessing more information on your issues:
- Accessibility Overview
- My Sites
- Issues
- Potential Issues
- PDFs
- ADA Title II (under Compliance)
Learn more about issues through Siteimprove’s On-Demand Accessibility 101 Webinar.
Where to find occurrences
The number of occurrences is noted in conjunction with each issue. The easiest ways to access the occurrences is to select the issue or page on which you would like to work. This will list all of the occurrences one by one.
Selecting an occurrence prompts Siteimprove to create a page report, which highlights the occurrence on the page. You may switch between the visual page content and the HTML of the page–the occurrence will be highlighted in both.
Accessibility score breakdown
In addition to the lists of dashboards, lists of issues, and page reports, Siteimprove has a score breakdown visual system. While in the Accessibility Overview, navigate to the Score Breakdown option.
Along with the general accessibility score of your site, this feature will also give a breakdown of each individual WCAG criteria.
This gives deeper insight into the actual accessibility of the site. The example given above is from a site with a score in the mid-70s–a ‘light green’ score which may seem passable broadly, but multiple categories are below an acceptable range.
Resources and support
- For more information on utilizing Siteimprove for accessibility issues, explore Siteimprove Frontier, their learning hub, and the Siteimprove Help Center, their support article hub.
- For technical assistance, contact the Siteimprove Help Center at support@siteimprove.com.
- For support in utilizing Siteimprove for your unit, contact the DIT Accessibility team at itaccessibility@umd.edu.