dodyg/web-severity-scoring

Web Severity Scoring

Severity Scoring Formula

Page Score = 100 - (sum of weighted findings)

Weights:
  Critical (high confidence, both sources):  -15 points
  Critical (high confidence, single source): -10 points
  Critical (medium confidence):               -7 points
  Critical (low confidence):                  -3 points
  Serious (high confidence):                  -7 points
  Serious (medium confidence):                -5 points
  Serious (low confidence):                   -2 points
  Moderate (high confidence):                 -3 points
  Moderate (medium confidence):               -2 points
  Moderate (low confidence):                  -1 point
  Minor:                                      -1 point

Floor: 0 (minimum score)

Score Grades

| Score | Grade | Meaning | |-------|-------|---------| | 90-100 | A | Excellent - minor or no issues, meets WCAG AA | | 75-89 | B | Good - some issues, mostly meets WCAG AA | | 50-74 | C | Needs Work - multiple issues, partial WCAG AA compliance | | 25-49 | D | Poor - significant accessibility barriers | | 0-24 | F | Failing - critical barriers, likely unusable with AT |

Confidence Levels

| Level | Weight | When to Use | |-------|--------|-------------| | High | 100% | Confirmed by axe-core + agent, or definitively structural (missing alt, no labels, no lang) | | Medium | 70% | Found by one source, likely issue (heading edge cases, questionable ARIA, possible keyboard traps) | | Low | 30% | Possible issue, needs human review (alt text quality, reading order, context-dependent link text) |

Source Correlation

Issues found by both axe-core AND agent review are automatically upgraded to high confidence regardless of individual confidence ratings.

Scorecard Format

Single Page

## Accessibility Score

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Page | [URL] |
| Score | [0-100] |
| Grade | [A-F] |
| Critical | [count] |
| Serious | [count] |
| Moderate | [count] |
| Minor | [count] |

Multi-Page

## Accessibility Scorecard

| Page | Score | Grade | Critical | Serious | Moderate | Minor |
|------|-------|-------|----------|---------|----------|-------|
| / | 82 | B | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| /login | 91 | A | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| /dashboard | 45 | D | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| **Average** | **72.7** | **C** | **2** | **6** | **8** | **4** |

Cross-Page Pattern Classification

| Pattern Type | Definition | Remediation ROI | |-------------|-----------|-----------------| | Systemic | Same issue on every audited page | Highest - usually layout/nav, fix once | | Template | Same issue on pages sharing a component | High - fix the shared component | | Page-specific | Unique to one page | Normal - fix individually |

Remediation Tracking

Change Classification

| Status | Definition | |--------|-----------| | Fixed | Issue was in previous report but no longer present | | New | Issue not in previous report, appears now | | Persistent | Issue remains from previous report | | Regressed | Issue was previously fixed but has returned |

Progress Metrics

• Issue reduction: (fixed / previous_total) * 100
• Score change: current_score - previous_score
• Pages improved: count of pages with higher scores than previous audit
• Trend: improving (score up 5+), stable (within 5), declining (score down 5+)

Issue Severity Categories

Critical

• No keyboard access to essential functionality
• Missing form labels on required fields
• Images conveying critical information have no alt text
• Color is the sole means of conveying information
• Keyboard traps with no escape

Serious

• Missing skip navigation
• Poor heading hierarchy (skipped levels)
• Focus not visible on interactive elements
• Form errors not programmatically associated
• Missing ARIA on custom widgets

Moderate

• Redundant ARIA on semantic elements
• Suboptimal heading structure (multiple H1s)
• Missing autocomplete on identity fields
• Links to new tabs without warning
• Missing table captions

Minor

• Redundant title attributes
• Suboptimal button text
• Missing landmark roles where semantic elements exist
• Decorative images with non-empty alt text