vital-scans open quality ledger

nih.gov: week 2026-W37

This is the 2026-W37 ISO-week report (3333 pages fetched, 23 unique pages audited by axe/Alfa). Generated 2026-09-11. Compared against 2026-W36 (3333 fetched). The dashboard headline uses a rolling last-7-days window; this page is the full ISO week. Machine-readable API: snapshot.json · findings.json.

Primary standards queue: 0 required finding type(s) (handling: report). Verification queue: 3 required finding type(s) (handling: review). Aspirational queue: 0 finding type(s). Advisory queue: 0 finding type(s). Unmapped review queue: 4 finding type(s).

Change this week

New this week
0
Fixed this week
0
Regressed this week
0

Fix these first

Highest-leverage issues, ranked by pages affected × severity × people reached. Fixing a shared component often clears many pages at once. Issue links go to the full bug detail on the Accessibility page.

Top 8 issues to prioritize this week.
IssueSeverityPagesWho it affectsHow to fixEvidence
Links must be distinguishable without relying on color (WCAG 1.4.1) (rule↗) Serious 23 Without color perception, Limited vision See remediation guidance: https://dequeuniversity.com/rules/axe/4.12/link-in-text-block?application=axeAPI pages (CSV)
All page content should be contained by landmarks (WCAG criterion undetermined) (rule↗) Moderate 23 — Wrap all page content in landmarks (header, nav, main, footer) so users can navigate by region. pages (CSV)
Heading levels should only increase by one (WCAG criterion undetermined) (rule↗) Moderate 19 — Use heading levels in order (h1 → h2 → h3) without skipping; structure, not size. pages (CSV)
Landmarks should have a unique role or role/label/title (i.e. accessible name) c (WCAG criterion undetermined) (rule↗) Moderate 15 — When a landmark role/type repeats (e.g. two <nav>s), give each a distinct accessible name with aria-label or aria-labelledby (e.g. "Primary" and "Footer" navigation) so screen-reader users can tell them apart. pages (CSV)
Text has enhanced contrast (WCAG 1.4.6) (rule↗) Moderate 14 — Increase text contrast to meet WCAG AAA (7:1). pages (CSV)
Text has minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 (WCAG 1.4.8) (rule↗) Moderate 14 — See remediation guidance: https://alfa.siteimprove.com/rules/sia-r73 pages (CSV)
Target size is at least 44×44 CSS pixels (Enhanced) (WCAG 2.5.5) (rule↗) Moderate 14 — See remediation guidance: https://alfa.siteimprove.com/rules/sia-r111 pages (CSV)
aria attribute is permitted for element role (WCAG criterion undetermined) (rule↗) Moderate 14 — Only use ARIA states/properties that are allowed on this element/role. pages (CSV)

Progress

Open findings by severity over 13 weeks (lower is better)
Critical Serious Moderate Minor W25W31W37250
Open findings by severity, by week
WeekCriticalSeriousModerateMinor
2026-W2501121
2026-W260180
2026-W270120
2026-W280110
2026-W2936233
2026-W3036234
2026-W3136254
2026-W3236234
2026-W3302121
2026-W3412141
2026-W3512141
2026-W3611141
2026-W3711110

Dropped from this week's sample

These stopped appearing in scan results, but their pages were not re-checked this week — this is not a confirmed fix.

This week at a glance 13 issue type(s)

Median axe violations / page
8
Pages with axe violations
23 of 23
Median Alfa failures / page
95
Pages with Alfa failures
14 of 14
Unique pages audited
23
Words per page (median)
777 main content, nav excluded
Reading ease (median)
43.3 13 prose pages
Reading grade (median)
12.2
Misspellings
25+ distinct details
Broken links
33 details
Median page weight
62 KB +2 KB worse
Median requests per page
6
Estimated energy per page (mean)
0.0206 Wh
Scan coverage this week (3333 pages · 25 succeeded of 3795 attempted)
Pages each engine ran on, per the configured weekly sampling rates.
EnginePagesCoverage
sustainability3089%
axe231%
resources231%
standards150%
alfa140%
plain-language140%
tech40%
deprecated-html30%
security20%

History & Trends → Severity, Lighthouse and other measures across 16 weeks.

Changes since 2026-W36 7 change(s)

axe-core

  • Resolved: empty-heading no longer fails on any scanned page.
  • heading-order spread: 17 → 19 pages affected (rate: 77% → 83% of pages scanned).
  • landmark-unique spread: 11 → 15 pages affected (rate: 50% → 65% of pages scanned).

Alfa

  • Resolved: sia-r85 no longer fails on any scanned page.
  • Resolved: sia-r78 no longer fails on any scanned page.
  • Resolved: sia-r64 no longer fails on any scanned page.
  • sia-r53 spread: 7 → 12 pages affected (rate: 78% → 86% of pages scanned).

Embedded & linked resources

Non-HTML resources this site links to or embeds — PDFs, Office documents, iframes, and media. The site owner is responsible for their accessibility too. Full inventory with first-seen dates: CSV.

New this week (2)

23 distinct resources, by type.
TypeCount
Images15
PDF documents7
Presentations1