The Problem With Pass/Fail Reports

Traditional accessibility reports treat every failure to conform with WCAG the same way. They count errors, calculate a pass rate, and leave your team to guess what actually matters.

Here is the problem: severity and risk are not the same thing. A skipped heading level barely affects most visitors, so a traditional report calls it low severity and buries it at the bottom of the list. But automated scanning tools flag that same issue in seconds, and those tools are exactly what plaintiff law firms use to select targets for demand letters. A “low severity” issue can be one of the riskiest items in your report, and a severity rating alone will never tell you that.

Privacy and security teams solved this problem years ago. They stopped counting vulnerabilities and started scoring risk, and that is what earned their work a permanent place on the executive agenda. The CRI brings the same discipline to digital accessibility.

Four Scores. One Clear Risk Picture.

Every CRI report opens with four scores. Each score is presented as one of five plain ratings, from Excellent to Critical. No jargon and no decoding.

• Excellent
• Good
• Fair
• Needs Attention
• Critical

Here are the four scores and what each one measures.

• Overall CRI

  Your site’s overall risk-weighted result, and the baseline we use to measure your progress in future evaluations of the same pages.

• Conformance

  How your site performed against WCAG on a pass or fail basis, weighted by conformance level.

• Detectability

  How easily the issues we documented could be found, from issues any automated scanner catches instantly to issues only a specialist would ever notice.

• User Impact

  How strongly the issues we documented affect real visitors on the pages that matter most to your site’s purpose.

Behind the scores, every finding is rated on three things: how severe it is, how easily it can be detected, and how important the affected page is to your visitors. We apply the same method to every evaluation we deliver, so your scores stay consistent and comparable over time.

A Report Your Developers and Your Executives Can Both Use

The scores are for your leadership. The findings are for your team. Every issue in a CRI report carries:

• A risk score and a priority tier (Immediate Urgent Planned or Backlog), so your team always knows what to fix first.
• A fix owner, whether that is your platform or template, your content team, a third-party component, or custom code, so the right work lands with the right people.
• Plain-language guidance on how each issue can be addressed and why it matters, with screenshots that show your team exactly where to look.

Your remediation roadmap is built into the report. You do not have to build one from a spreadsheet of errors.

Numbers Your Leadership Already Understands

Budgets follow risk. Your executives already fund privacy and security programs because those risks arrive scored, tracked, and reported in language they understand. Accessibility usually arrives as a list of technical failures, which makes it easy to postpone.

When accessibility arrives as a risk score instead, it joins the same conversation as privacy and security, and it earns the same attention. The CRI gives the accessibility advocates inside your organization the numbers they need to win executive support, and it gives your leadership a defensible way to direct resources where risk is highest.

Prove Your Progress

Your first CRI report establishes a baseline. When you are ready to measure your progress, an optional re-evaluation engagement scores the same pages again, and the comparison documents how far you have come. That gives you evidence of a serious, good-faith accessibility effort that you can put in front of leadership, customers, auditors, or counsel, and it turns accessibility from a one-time project into risk management you can sustain.

Testing That Covers Today’s Obligations and Tomorrow’s

We evaluate your site manually against WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA, the current version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. WCAG 2.2 includes every Level A and AA requirement from WCAG 2.1, so one evaluation supports a WCAG 2.1 AA conformance goal today and positions you for the standards that come next. Learn more about our expert accessibility evaluations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the CRI replace WCAG?

No. Every finding in our reports is grounded in WCAG. The CRI adds a layer of risk context on top, so you know which failures to conform with WCAG deserve attention first.

What goes into the scores?

Every finding is rated on its severity, how easily it can be detected, and how important the affected page is to your visitors. We apply the same method to every evaluation, so results are consistent across audits and over time.

Should we fix whatever moves our scores the most?

No. The site scores tell you where you stand. The findings tell you what to do. Work through the priority tiers in your report, starting with the Immediate items.

What if our scores come back low?

A low score is not a verdict. It is a starting point that shows you where risk is concentrated, and it becomes the baseline that documents your improvement when you choose to re-evaluate.

See Where You Stand

One report gives you your scores, your priorities, and your plan. Contact us for a free quote, and we will show you what a risk-managed accessibility program looks like.

Contact Us Now for a Free Quote

Converge Risk Index and CRI are trademarks of Converge Accessibility.