How misspellings affect user experience
One or more typos on a web page not only obscure the page’s intended message – such errors also tell readers that the author neglected to review the content. This raises a small but crucial question: if the spelling is wrong, what else is?
Misspellings can quickly undermine the credibility of Rowan’s reputation and the hard work we put into it. By contrast, well-written and carefully edited content reinforces prospective students’ beliefs in our high-quality education. Error-free writing also improves accessibility for users with cognitive and learning disabilities (like dyslexia), those who rely on screen readers, and non-native speakers.
Clear, accurate writing is part of how Rowan shows up for the people we serve, and Siteimprove helps us to get it right.
How Siteimprove can help
Siteimprove scans every page on your website every five days and flags words it doesn't recognize. These flags are then shown on the Quality Assurance dashboard. Some are genuine errors: swapped letters, wrong words, or non-standard constructions. Others are proper nouns, names, or technical terms that Siteimprove hasn't seen before.
Either way, each flag is worth a look. The ones that matter are easy to fix, and the ones that don't matter are easy to dismiss.
What to do
- Log in to Siteimprove and go to the home dashboard. Find the Misspelled Words section.
- Open the Misspelled Words report. You'll see a list of flagged words, the pages they appear on, and when each was first detected.
- Review each flag. Ask: is this actually misspelled, or is it a name, a technical term, or a proper noun?
- Fix real errors in Cascade. Open the page, find the word, correct it. That's it.
- Dismiss false positives. If a flagged word is correct, like a person's name, a program title, a specialized term, you can dismiss it in Siteimprove so it stops appearing in your report.
What to avoid
- Don't dismiss words without reading them carefully. A name that looks like a false positive might be spelled wrong after all.
- Don't use "Words to Review" and "Misspelled Words" interchangeably. They are two different reports. Misspelled Words are definite errors or unrecognized words. Words to Review flags content that may be contextually incorrect (drumset vs drum-set).
- Don't overcorrect proper nouns. If a department name or person's title is spelled correctly and Siteimprove flags it, dismiss it. Don't change the spelling to satisfy the tool.
How to do it in Cascade
- In Siteimprove, note the CMS button. Clicking it will bring you directly to the page in Cascade.
- In Cascade, find and open that page.
- Click Edit.
- Find the word and correct the spelling.
- Save and submit for publishing. This makes your changes live!
- Siteimprove will clear the flag after the next crawl.
Resources and next steps
Learn More
Questions? Reach out to the Web Services team. We're here to help!
