NextGen: Siteimprove's New Accessibility Module
On January 12, 2022, there was a change to Siteimprove, the Harvard-licensed tool to check accessibility. The previous Accessibility module was replaced with a new, improved version called NextGen. NextGen has a similar user experience and still allows you to monitor your site’s accessibility, but there are some new features that will make understanding and implementing accessibility fixes much more streamlined.
New features in NextGen
- Potential Issues: a new assisted workflow that guides you through a step-by-step review process to evaluate content that could potentially be an issue
- Code examples: guidance on how to implement code that will pass the relevant WCAG success criteria
- Difficulty rating: gives you an idea of the technical complexity and required accessibility knowledge needed to fix issues
- Score calculation: accessibility progress will be monitored occurrence-by-occurrence, so the more occurrences you fix, the higher your score will be
Documentation from Siteimprove
- Accessibility NextGen: What has changed?
- Full overview of the key features in NextGen
- Accessibility NextGen: A Guide to Understanding the New Siteimprove Accessibility Checks
- Accessibility NextGen: Understanding the revised DCI accessibility score
- Accessibility NextGen: Reviewing Potential Issues
- Accessibility NextGen: Working with Page Sections
Support
If you have any questions about Siteimprove or NextGen, please email digitalaccessibility@harvard.edu and the DAS team will be happy to help. You can also stop by DAS Office Hours on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of each month from 10am-12pm.