case study

ADA Website Remediation: 2-Phase Siteimprove Score Boost

ADA Website Remediation: 2-Phase Siteimprove Score Boost
  • 2

    phases: code-level remediation, then a Siteimprove-validated retest of every fix (from April 2026)

  • WCAG 2.1

    barriers fixed in code and verified with screen readers and keyboard-only testing

  • 5.0/5

    Upwork rating on both phases

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Know where you stand. Know what to work on next.

Tell us what you’re working on and where you need support. Our accessibility specialists can help with audits, remediation, VPAT/ACR, accessible development, and ongoing compliance.

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Client & Context

ADA website remediation is where accessibility stops being a report and starts being code. Stephen Groner’s team engaged HalfAccessible in April 2026 to remediate a website against ADA expectations and WCAG 2.1 — and then, in a second phase with Michelle Dissel, to verify that work against the organisation’s Siteimprove monitoring and push the scores up.

Choose Your Next Step

Want the same ADA website remediation and score reconciliation for your site? Pick how you want to start.

Free 30-Minute Call

Best for: teams watching a Siteimprove, axe or Lighthouse score who want to know where they stand, or need a remediation quote.

Share your dashboard and deadline. We explain where you stand and quote a fixed-price remediation or audit.

Book a Free 30-Min Call (opens in new tab)

1-Hour Technical Consultation ($100)

Best for: developer teams that need expert technical answers now.

A working session to go through your monitoring findings live, sort real barriers from false positives, or talk fixes through with your developer.

Book the $100 Technical Hour

Accessibility Remediation (Quote)

Best for: teams with an audit report or issue list who need the barriers fixed in code.

Code-level fixes verified with screen readers and keyboard, then checked against your monitoring tool so the score reflects the work.

See Remediation Services

The Challenge

Enterprise monitoring platforms like Siteimprove are unforgiving: every unresolved issue stays on the dashboard where stakeholders see it. The remediation had to fix real barriers — not just silence automated checks — and the follow-up phase had to reconcile every Siteimprove finding against the work actually performed, closing genuine gaps and documenting false positives.

Two-Phase ADA Website Remediation

Phase one addressed the core barrier classes at code level: semantic structure, image alternatives, form labelling, keyboard operability, focus visibility, and colour contrast — each verified manually with screen readers and keyboard-only testing against WCAG 2.1 criteria and aligned with ADA.gov web guidance on how the ADA applies to websites.

Phase two worked the Siteimprove queue item by item: confirming fixes were detected, re-fixing anything the crawler still flagged legitimately, and annotating items where the tool’s heuristic disagreed with the standard. Tool-driven scores only improve honestly when a human arbitrates that difference.

The Results

  • WCAG 2.1 barriers remediated directly in the site’s code
  • Every Siteimprove finding reconciled — fixed, re-fixed, or documented
  • Measurable improvement in the organisation’s accessibility scores
  • Both phases rated 5.0 out of 5.0 on Upwork

What Monitoring Tools Catch — and What They Miss

Automated platforms like Siteimprove are strong at what they automate, but W3C WAI notes that evaluation tools cannot check every accessibility aspect; human judgement is still required, and tools can produce false or misleading results. Here is where the line usually falls:

What automated monitoring tools can flag compared with what needs a human tester with assistive technology
Monitoring tools can flagNeeds a human with assistive technology
Images have an alt attributeThe alt text actually describes the image and its purpose
Text and background colours meet contrast ratiosFocus lands somewhere sensible when a modal or menu closes
Form fields have an associated labelThe screen reader announcement really describes the control
Duplicate IDs and other markup errorsReading order makes sense with a screen reader
A score trend across crawlsWhether a real barrier for users is gone, not just silenced

The right-hand column needs a person testing with screen readers and the keyboard, which is why ADA website remediation guided only by a dashboard plateaus early.

Score methodology adds a second trap. Monitoring scores weight issues by their own heuristics, not by user impact, so chasing the score can mean fixing trivial items while real barriers persist. The honest approach treats the dashboard as a coverage map, not a verdict.

Our Reconciliation Process, Step by Step

  1. Export the full Siteimprove issue inventory and de-duplicate by root cause
  2. Fix genuine barriers at code level — semantics first, ARIA only where HTML cannot do the job
  3. Re-crawl and confirm detection, re-fixing anything legitimately still flagged
  4. Document false positives with standard citations so they stop reappearing in stakeholder reports
  5. Verify the user-facing result with screen readers and keyboard-only passes

The outcome is a score that rises because the experience improved — and stays up because the fixes addressed causes, not symptoms.

Watching Your Own Dashboard?

If your Siteimprove, axe, or Lighthouse scores have plateaued, our accessibility remediation services fix the underlying barriers — and our accessibility audit services catch what monitoring tools cannot. For teams already under a filing, see ADA lawsuit remediation. For keeping scores honest after the fix, see accessibility monitoring and governance. Public package ranges are on accessibility audit pricing.

Not sure where to start? Book a free 30-minute call (opens in new tab) to talk through your dashboard, deadline and site, and get a fixed-price remediation quote. If your developers need expert technical answers now, book the $100 one-hour technical consultation to go through monitoring findings live or talk fixes through with them. Prefer a written request? Request a free assessment, or start a $500 Quick Audit for up to 5 page templates.

Prefer an audit-first engagement? See our sibling 8-week accessibility audit and remediation case study — that programme led with discovery; this one led with code-level ADA website remediation and Siteimprove score reconciliation.

Why This Matters

Validating fixes against Siteimprove’s automated reporting gave the client’s team a way to track progress in the monitoring tool they already used day to day, rather than relying solely on a one-time audit document. The second phase re-tested every WCAG 2.1 issue flagged in phase one, confirmed each fix in context, and mapped the results back to Siteimprove’s own scoring so the client could see the score move as remediation landed — evidence backed by manual verification, not an automated re-scan alone. Both phases of the engagement — the original remediation and the Siteimprove-validated retest — were completed and signed off within the same overall timeline the client had budgeted for. That pattern is what buyers looking for ADA website remediation usually need: code that removes real barriers, plus a monitoring dashboard stakeholders already trust.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will fixing accessibility issues automatically raise our Siteimprove score?

Mostly, but not one-to-one — scores follow the tool’s own weighting and crawl schedule, which is why we re-crawl and reconcile rather than assume. See how we run accessibility remediation alongside monitoring, and Siteimprove’s accessibility platform for how their scoring works.

What about issues the tool flags that are not real?

We document false positives with standard citations — including WCAG 2.1 and W3C guidance on evaluation tools — so they can be dismissed confidently in stakeholder reporting instead of haunting every quarterly review.

Does ADA compliance require a specific score?

No — the ADA references the experience, not a vendor metric. ADA.gov web guidance explains how the ADA applies to websites; scores are useful trend lines for stakeholders and budgets, not legal thresholds. That is why human verification sits alongside the dashboard in any serious ADA website remediation programme. If you are under a filing, start with our ADA lawsuit remediation guide and accessibility audit pricing.

What does an ADA website remediation engagement include?

Typically: barrier fixes in code (semantics, labels, keyboard, focus, contrast), manual screen-reader and keyboard verification, and — when you already run Siteimprove or similar — a reconciliation pass so the dashboard matches reality. Scope and packages are outlined on accessibility audit pricing; book a free 30-minute call for a scoped quote, or the $100 one-hour technical consultation if your developers need to go through findings live. Ongoing checks live under accessibility monitoring and governance.

Should we start with the free 30-minute call or the $100 consultation?

Start with the free 30-minute call if you are exploring: it is a first discussion to understand where your site and monitoring scores stand, agree the scope and get a quote. Choose the $100 one-hour technical consultation when your team needs hands-on technical help now, for example walking through Siteimprove or audit findings, talking with your developer, or reviewing issues on your site live.

Can a free automated scan replace a Siteimprove reconciliation?

No. A free scan on AccessibilityScore.in, our axe-core powered WCAG checker, is a useful starting point to see which automated issues a page has. Like any monitoring tool it cannot judge meaningful alt text, focus order or screen reader announcements, so ADA website remediation still needs manual testing with assistive technology and a human pass over the dashboard findings.

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