Siteimprove

What Siteimprove Does at CMC

Siteimprove crawls all CMC web properties and tests each page against WCAG 2.1 AA. It categorizes findings into three types:

Errors — Definite failures that violate a WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion. These must be fixed.
Warnings — Likely issues that require human judgment to confirm whether a violation exists.
Notices — Items that cannot be evaluated automatically and require manual review.

Domains covered include cmc.edu and all registered CMC subdomains. High-volume sites such as Athletics — with 15,000+ pages — have additional capacity provisioned for complete coverage.

Requesting Your Report

Siteimprove scanning is run centrally by ITS and Strategic Communications. You do not need your own dashboard login — ITS will send you the accessibility report for the site or sites you manage.

1

Email the Help Desk

Email help@cmc.edu with subject: “Siteimprove Accessibility Report.”
2

Tell Us What You Manage

Include your role and the CMC domain or section you are responsible for.
3

We Send Your Report

ITS typically returns your report within 3 business days, with the WCAG 2.1 AA errors on your pages and guidance on fixing them.
4

Ask for a Re-Scan

Scans run automatically every 5 days. After you make fixes, ask ITS for an updated report or a manual scan if you need faster verification.

Reading Your Report

1

Open the Overview

Your report opens with a high-level accessibility score and the trend over time.

2

Filter to WCAG 2.1 AA Errors

Work through the WCAG 2.1 AA findings, prioritising Errors first.

3

Drill Into Each Issue

Each issue lists the affected pages, a plain-language description, a code snippet showing the problem, and step-by-step fix guidance.

4

Use the Pages View

Use the per-page breakdown to see every issue on a specific page before making edits in your CMS.

5

Verify After Fixing

After fixing, scans run automatically every 5 days. Ask ITS for a manual scan if you need faster verification.

Understanding Results

Each issue type signals a different level of confidence and required action:

Errors

Definite WCAG 2.1 AA failures confirmed by automated testing.

Must be fixed to achieve compliance
No human judgment required — these are clear violations
Address these first for the greatest compliance impact

Warnings

Likely issues that require human judgment to confirm whether a violation exists.

Review each warning in context
Fix where a violation is confirmed
Document decisions where no fix is needed

Notices

Items that cannot be evaluated automatically and require manual review.

Require a human tester to assess
Common for color contrast edge cases and complex interactions
Include in periodic manual audit cycles — automated tools cannot judge these, which is why human review is part of the process

Template-Level Fixes

The highest-impact strategy for large sites with many pages.

One fix resolves the same error across hundreds of pages
Start with template issues before content-level issues
Submit a Help Desk ticket with the Siteimprove issue ID

Key Insight

Template-level fixes resolve the same error across hundreds of pages simultaneously — start there for the highest impact per hour of effort.

Template vs. Content Issues

If the same error appears on every page of your site, it is almost certainly a template issue — originating in a shared header, footer, navigation, or theme component. Do not fix it page by page.

Submit a Help Desk ticket to ITS with the issue ID from Siteimprove. ITS and StratCom will apply the template fix, which resolves all instances at once and improves your score dramatically on the next scan cycle.

Scan Configuration

Scans run every 5 days automatically across all registered CMC domains.
Manual scans are available by request — submit a ticket to Help Desk.
Currently configured to WCAG 2.1 AA.
ITS is evaluating WCAG 2.2 configuration for a future update.