Siteimprove

Think of the score as a snapshot of your current risk level and a roadmap for where to focus next, rather than a finish line. The real goal is to keep reducing risk and improving the experience over time. The 95% goal is meant to give all of us a clear, shared target to work toward. It’s there to help you prioritize and show progress, not to suggest that everything is instantly perfect the moment you hit that number. Siteimprove can automatically check a lot of accessibility requirements, but not all of them.

The 95% target applies to all UC websites and web applications, not just the ones currently set up in Siteimprove or hosted in AEM/Sitefinity.

For sites that are already in Siteimprove, the goal is for each site’s overall Site target score to be at or above 95%. Within a site, some pages will be higher and others lower but the overall site score should meet or exceed the target. 

This is a very common question. The short version is:

• The DCI score is a broad “digital quality” score. It’s useful as background, but it’s not the number we use for Title II work.
• On the accessibility side, the number that matters for the 95% target is the Accessibility Site target score.
• This generic Accessibility score includes some enhanced/AAA checks and extra weighting that go beyond UC’s current requirements. The Site target score filters those out and aligns with the A/AA checks connected to our 95% goal.

For the Title II benchmark, focus on the Site target score. A practical way to keep things manageable is to work mostly from the Issues tab with the default filters turned on.

You’re not doing anything wrong if the number moves. Siteimprove re-crawls your site on a regular schedule (about every five days). This means you may fix something today and not see the effect until after the next crawl, and you may see dips when new pages or newly detected issues are added to the mix.

It’s more helpful to look at the trend over time and the kinds of issues you’re resolving rather than expect the score to stay steady day to day.

You’re still on the right track. The Title II date isn’t a one‑time finish line, rather it’s the point after which the federal government can begin enforcing the updated rules.

If your score dips after a new crawl, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just means new issues or pages have been detected. Keep working through issues as part of your normal maintenance. Title II compliance is ongoing work, not a one‑and‑done event.

You’re not imagining it. Not everything Siteimprove flags is something you can fix directly on a page, and that’s okay.

Some items come from shared templates or components, and others are “enhanced” (AAA‑level) checks that are outside the current 95% target. In those cases, it’s expected that you may not be able to resolve them at the individual page level.

Your main job is to focus on the issues you can control in your own content: things like headings, link text, alt text, PDFs and documents, and media. Template-level issues and suspected false positives are being tracked centrally and will be addressed over time as part of broader design and system updates.

Guided reviews are there because some things can’t be fully decided by automation. Siteimprove is essentially saying, “This might be an issue; can a person double‑check it?”

For “descriptive heading” on an H1, it’s asking whether that heading gives enough context for someone using a screen reader. The right answer depends on the page and where it sits in your site. Look at the page in context. If the heading makes sense given the rest of the content, you can walk through the guided review and confirm it’s okay. If it isn’t very clear, you can adjust the heading in page properties to be more descriptive and then mark the issue as addressed. If you’re unsure, you can always ask for a second opinion. 

In AEM, authors can’t add an H1 component themselves. That’s by design, so we don’t end up with multiple H1s on a page.

If an H1 gets removed and Siteimprove flags “Page does not start with an H1,” it usually means the H1 component was accidentally deleted. Because authors can’t add that component back, the central web team needs to do it for you. Please submit a ticket for that page and we’ll reinsert the H1 component so the page starts with a proper heading again. 

AAA checks are not part of UC’s current 95% requirement. They can be great long‑term goals, but you are not expected to fix AAA items for the Title II benchmark. It’s fine to note them for future improvement, but when you’re prioritizing work, focus on A and AA issues first.

Siteimprove is a big help, but it doesn’t see everything. When you’re on a page to fix an issue, it’s worth using that visit to check a few things manually and look at the whole experience, not just the one flag.

A few simple manual checks you can do:

• Video: Play any video. Are captions accurate and complete, or are they just auto‑captions? Is there important information in the audio that isn’t reflected in text anywhere?
• Keyboard: Try navigating with the Tab function/key through the page without using your mouse. Can you get to all links, buttons, and form fields? Does the focus move in a logical order, and can you see where you are on the page at all times?
• Forms and error messages: If there is a form, are fields clearly labeled? If you submit it with something missing or wrong, are the errors easy to find and understand?
• Color and contrast: Are you relying only on color to convey meaning (for example, “items in red are required”)? If so, is there also text or an icon that communicates the same thing?
• Documents: For any important PDFs or Word documents linked from the page, are they built with headings, readable text (not just images), and meaningful link text, so someone using a screen reader could navigate them?

In the issues tab, you can sort by "Importance" and by "Pages affected". Errors that appear on many pages usually carry the most risk and are a good place to start. After that, work your way through warnings and lower‑impact items. Another good strategy is to start with your highest‑traffic or most important pages, so the improvements you make help the most people.

We don’t have a standing, recurring Siteimprove training series right now, but there are some very solid resources to help you get comfortable with the tool and start making progress on your site. When we do schedule live Q&A sessions or walkthroughs, we’ll share those opportunities through the Apex user group and related channels, so your Apex contact will receive those details as they’re available.

If you’re new to Siteimprove, we recommend starting with these:

• Complete list of interactive tutorials

• Learning Hub Course:
  • Siteimprove Onboarding: Introduction and Accessibility
  • Getting the most out of quality assurance
  • Power Tip: Managing broken links

These walk you through the basics and give you a good foundation for using the Issues tab and dashboards.