Silktide User Guide

The TTU IT Division has partnered with Silktide to provide a website quality and accessibility testing solution.

What is Silktide?

Silktide is a platform that automatically scans websites for accessibility, content, and marketing issues. Texas Tech Univesrity has implemented Silktide for all websites updated within Omni CMS to ensure that webpages offered by the university meet accessibility guidelines and provide quality content for their intended users. Any issues discovered by Silktide scans can then be addressed by the site owners, managers, or content editors for that site.

How can I get access?

You can request access to Silktide by submitting a Web Quality and Accessibility Scanning request. All requests will need to be approved by the appropriate Web Site Content Owner. If you are hoping to correct issues discovered by Silktide, you will need access to Omni CMS.

How do I use Silktide?

We recommend that you begin with the Getting Started course in the Silktide Academy. It has a series of short videos (most under 2 minutes) to get you up to speed in under 20 minutes.

When you log in to Silktide, you'll see screenshots of the sites you have been assigned to. Click on your site to see your Silktide scores. Here's a rundown of the areas covered in the report:

Content

The Content module is most frequently used by non-technical content editors, as the most common issues concern content that they are usually responsible for. This includes items like unrecognized spellings, broken links, grammar issues, reading age of content, and some accessibility items related to the page's content. Silktide has several articles about the Content module, as well as an Academy course discussing the Content module.

Accessibility

This Accessibility module will identify any web accessibility issues present on your site. Correcting these items can help ensure all users can perceive, understand, and use your website. Silktide has several articles about the Accessibility module, as well as an Academy course discussing the Accessibility module.

Marketing

The Marketing module will assist you in creating pages that can be found on search engines. This section also provdies insights into the popularity of your site, as well as what other websites are linking to your site. Silktide has several articles about the Marketing module.

User Experience

The User Experience module provides insights into how users interact with your website. You can use the tools here to optimize your site for the variety of devices and networks upon which your users may access your site. Check out Silktide's guides for using the User Experience module.

Privacy

The Privacy module helps highlight potential privacy issues that may be present on your site. This module lists all forms on your site that are collecting user data and provides a list of software tools referenced in the code of each page. Learn more about the Privacy module in Silktide's Privacy module guides.

Limitations

• Pages that are protected by eRaider are not currently scanned by Silktide. Silktide also is not configured to complete any application process on your site. However, you could use the Silktide browser extension for Chrome and/or the ANDI browser plugin to test these pages.
• Alt text for images are not scanned for accuracy, as Silktide can only see if the attribute is present and not if it accurately describes the image. We have a guide to help you write effective image descriptions.
• Automated testing can help you find issues on your site, but often manual checks are still needed to verify that your site is accessible. Try to operate your site with just a keyboard, listen to your site with a screen reader, and test your site on a wide variety of browsers, devices, and screen resolutions to all users can operate your site effectively.