Dynamic Content

Overview

Dynamic Content is a powerful feature in Siteimprove that allows you to capture and analyze dynamic states of web pages, ensuring they meet accessibility, quality, and SEO standards, as well as your own policies. This guide will walk you through the key features of and how to use Dynamic Content.

• Key Features
• How to Use Dynamic Content
  • Capturing Snapshots
  • Store and Analyze
• Monitoring Progress / Recapturing Snapshots

Key Features

1. User Flows/Snapshots:
   • Create user flows as repositories for your dynamic content
   • Capture snapshots of the DOM of dynamic states of pages using the Chrome browser extension
2. Storage and Management:
   • Automatically store captured snapshots and check their results in the “Dynamic Content” section of your account
   • Access DCI scores for each snapshot in your user flow, and for all your user flows collectively
3. Comprehensive Checks:
   • Run Siteimprove checks on snapshots including Accessibility, Quality Assurance, Policy, and Technical SEO
   • Identify and address issues with detailed page reports
4. Sharing and Reporting:
   • Share page reports and DCI scores with internal or external stakeholders
5. Progress Monitoring:
   • Recapture snapshots to monitor improvements and track progress over time

How to Use Dynamic Content

Capturing Snapshots

1. Install the Chrome Extension:
   • Download and install the Siteimprove Dynamic Content Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store, and complete the extension setup flow.
2. Create a user flow:
   • Create a user flow either in the Dynamic Content section of the Siteimprove platform or directly within the Browser extension.
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   • Give the user flow a name and a description to help identify it later.
   • Add the start-URL of the user flow. This should be a page that can be reached without having gone through any manual interaction in the user flow. It allows us to generate links for the created user flows, to find them quickly later, and to recapture when necessary.
   • Press “Create” at the bottom of the extension.
3. Capture a Snapshot:
   • Navigate to the start-URL of the user flow you want to capture.
   • Use the extension to capture the current state of the page. This captures the whole document object model (DOM) of the page – all visible content and elements.
     • Note that capturing a snapshot will not include the value of text fields or choices in selections. This means Siteimprove will not store names, credit card numbers, or specific selections from user flows if they are visible in text fields or selections on the captured state of the page.
   • Repeat the capture process for all of the steps you want to check within your user flow. Once you captured the first step, navigate to the second step and then capture a snapshot of it. Then navigate to the third step and capture a snapshot of that one. 
     • Interact with dynamic elements on pages to include them in the snapshot when you capture it. This might include tabs, elements to unfold, or similar elements.
   • If you are navigating between different steps or states on only one URL page, use the Edit Name button to edit the name of the step. The default name of the step is the title of the page URL you are on. It might in be the same throughout your whole user flow if the page title  doesn’t change from step to step.
   • If you have captured a snapshot incorrectly, use the Delete button. You can then capture a snapshot of a different state of the page that you are on.
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   • When all steps in the user flow have been captured, press done. This initiates the content check process and might take a few minutes. We recommend checking back on the user flow details in the platform a few minutes later.
   • The extension will update with the results when the check is done. So if you want to work on it in the browser, you can simply keep the extension open and you’ll see when the results are in.
   • When all is calculated then either directly jump into the page reports from the extension, or navigate to the platform to view the details.

Store and Analyze

1. Overview:
   • Find your user flows in the user flow overview when entering the “Dynamic Content section.” You can choose between a Card view and a List view.
     • In the List view, you’ll see a number of sorting options for easily finding your user flows. 
   • The user flow overview shows the title and description of the user flow as well as the creation date and the user who created it. In the user flow details you’ll also see the last person who updated the user flow with recaptured snapshots.
   • Use the search box to find the user flow you want to review, if you have many of them created. It searches through the name of the user flow (not through the description).
2. Access Page Reports:
   • Navigate to the “Dynamic Content” section in your Siteimprove account and to the user flow you want to view to reach the user flow details page.
   • Select the Page Report of the snapshot you want to review.
   • Alternatively, you can find a link to the page report from directly within the browser extension.
3. Analyze Issues:
   • Use the DCI score to gauge the overall quality of the user flow.
   • Review the page reports, which highlight all identified issues across Siteimprove’s content products.
   • Page reports for snapshots are stored in the platform for 180 days or until they are replaced by a new snapshot of the step when recaptured. After this time, they are discarded for data security reasons. 
4. Share the page reports:
   • Share the report with colleagues or stakeholders for remediation using the share button inside the page report.

Monitoring Progress / Recapturing Snapshots

1. Recapture Snapshots:
   • Find the user flow you want to recapture within the browser extension. Either choose from the captured user flows that you see directly when logging into the extension, or click on “re-capture user flow” to search for the user flow you want to recapture.
   • Navigate to the start-URL of your user flow.
   • Use the recapture functionality to take new snapshots of the steps in your user flow. The recapture functionality can be found as a slider in the right upper side of the browser extension when choosing an existing user flow.
   • In the current version it is possible to recapture any step in the existing user flow. It is not currently possible to extend the existing user flows with more steps, or to delete steps from a user flow.
   • When recapturing steps in a user flow, the old snapshots are discarded. This means that we still keep the DCI scores to track the overall improvements on the scores, but we remove the page report for the old snapshot. The new page report from your latest captured snapshot will be available instead.
   • Select “Done” to finish recapturing the user flow.
2. Track Improvements:
   • Monitor the progress of accessibility and other content improvements as you recapture them. Navigate to Dynamic Content > User Flow Details of the user flow you want to inspect.
   • You will find the latest captured snapshots in the left tab, and the historical snapshots in the right tab.
   • The user flow details show a progress graph, displaying the user flow’s average DCI score over time. It also highlights the best and the worst performing steps, according to their DCI scores. 
   • Export options for the data within user flows are, at the time of writing this article, still in progress. We hope to add export options to the product before long. Screenshots of of things including scores and user flows, with appropriate Alt Text included, can be used to demonstrate compliance to stakeholders.

Note: For certain accounts, it is necessary to activate the Dynamic Content product before being able to use it. The first user on the account to enter the product will be prompted to activate Dynamic Content – for themselves and for all other users. This one time action can take up to 15 minutes due to a backend process running.