As campus colleges and units inventoried thousands of systems, websites, and files needing remediation to meet digital accessibility standards, it was clear a tall task was ahead.
With increased awareness, strong collaboration, and the right tools, the University of Iowa is making significant progress.
Facilities Management (FM) achieved a milestone recently when two of its most widely used applications reached full accessibility compliance.
FM@YourService is used to submit work requests across campus, while BuildUI serves as a central hub for capital project management and collaboration. In both systems, accessibility updates focused on clear form labeling, consistent navigation, and adherence to web-accessibility standards. The FM team relied on Google’s Lighthouse extension to identify gaps and conducted follow-up testing to validate compliance.
“We improved color contrast, added descriptive labels, ensured keyboard navigability, and verified compatibility with screen readers,” says Parthosarathy Basu Roy Choudhury, a senior application developer in FM. “After implementing these updates, we’ve observed noticeable improvements in usability and navigation consistency for all users, including those using assistive technologies.”
As applications evolve, the team is committed to ongoing review and developer education.
“Our next focus is to maintain compliance by periodically reviewing these applications for any regressions, continuing accessibility awareness among developers, and extending these standards to other applications,” Choudhury says.
Automated monitoring accelerates work on student systems
Similar progress is underway within Administrative Information Systems (AIS). AIS-Enterprise Student Systems supports the university’s major academic administrative applications, including MAUI (Made at the University of Iowa), MyUI, and various applications within ICON.
“We developed a tool that captures accessibility issues in real time as campus users interact with our applications,” says Bill Evanson, director of Enterprise Student Systems. “A dashboard built on top of that data allows management to track progress over time and helps developers quickly identify which pages need remediation.”
This data-driven approach has delivered major results. MyUI is fully remediated, and MAUI–which includes more than 3,400 pages–is now 99% remediated. Overall, the AIS-Enterprise Student Systems team has addressed accessibility issues across 97% of its application portfolio.
“Given the size of MAUI, without automated monitoring we would not have been able to make so much progress so quickly,” Evanson says.
AIS is committed to growing and adapting as systems continue to evolve.
“Applications are a moving target because new features are always being added, and we will continue to add new applications to our portfolio,” Evanson says. “Our automated monitoring will allow us to not only remediate existing issues but ensure that our applications remain accessible.”
Siteimprove helps website managers identify accessibility barriers
Beyond applications, the university is making progress across its large and complex website ecosystem.
Siteimprove, the platform used to monitor and report on web accessibility, has seen substantial growth this year. Nearly 900 additional UI websites were added to Siteimprove since January 2025, bringing the total to nearly 2,000 sites now actively scanned.
Website managers and developers review the reports to understand what they need to fix.
“We’re a large research university with thousands of websites and web experiences,” says Michael O’Neill, director of web strategy in the Office of Strategic Communication, who leads the web accessibility subcommittee for the university. “The growth in sites being scanned, along with the upward trend in average scores, tells us campus has increasing visibility into accessibility issues. Many units are making real improvements, but we still have significant work to do.”
That work includes expanding the inventory of campus websites. One college recently identified 350 additional public-facing sites not yet included in Siteimprove.
“We know there are still pockets of websites flying under the radar,” O’Neill says. “The number of sites in Siteimprove will continue to grow as we discover and add them.”
While average accessibility scores are improving, staff emphasize that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II Compliance report in Siteimprove is the more immediately actionable metric for compliance.
Some sites with high overall scores still have compliance issues, and others with lower scores have done the deep remediation work.
“That’s why looking past the headline number is so important,” O’Neill says.
For campus partners feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to begin, O’Neill says the key is to start the conversation. A good place to begin is the Accessible Iowa website, which includes resources, training opportunities, and the ability to ask the Accessibility Task Force questions.
"We want campus partners to use that door and let the task force help move them forward,” O’Neill says.