Siteimprove
Siteimprove is a new tool that we are implementing across all richmond.edu domains to help monitor and improve web accessibility. It works in conjunction with Cascade CMS, allowing you to optimize your site’s content quickly and efficiently. Siteimprove can also help find old and irrelevant content, broken links, or outdated or misspelled branding or wording.
With Siteimprove, we can ensure a consistent experience for all users accessing our sites. This begins by following and adhering to international Web Content Accessibility Guidelines established by the World Wide Web Consortium. For instance, utilizing headings on pages and entering alt text for images allow a browser’s screen reading tool to identify content on a webpage for vision-impaired users. Improving the accessibility of webpages also helps search engines find content better, a primary way users find richmond.edu sites. When we utilize Siteimprove, we ensure that users not only find our webpages but also find what they are looking for when they visit richmond.edu.
Getting Started
To set up your account, you must first receive a welcome email from Siteimprove. Your richmond.edu email address will serve as your user ID. From the email, select the option to sign in and you will then be prompted to create a password. Once your account has been created, you can sign in to Siteimprove here.
Communicators in charge of updating their sites in Cascade are asked to monitor their site’s Accessibility and Quality Assurance metrics in Siteimprove and take action to improve their scores on a regular basis. While Siteimprove is a powerful tool, we suggest beginning by simply monitoring broken links, spelling errors, and accessibility issues. Download our Quick Start Guide for tips on how to address common issues in these areas.
Training
All users will have access to Siteimprove Help Center articles, guides and FAQs, in-platform tutorials, and Siteimprove Frontier. Colleagues in University Communications will also be available to train users and troubleshoot issues.
The main tool for training is Siteimprove Frontier, which consists of targeted training programs for navigating and utilizing the platform. We recommend the following courses: