Web Retreat 2026

Prepared from the Rice Web Retreat 2026 session transcripts

Revised and organized for clarity, continuity and executive readability | August 2026

Executive Synthesis

The Rice Web Retreat 2026 sessions presented one connected modernization story. Accessibility establishes the minimum standard for every digital experience. Accurate, structured and well-governed content helps people find and understand Rice information across websites, search engines and AI-assisted discovery. A shared design system creates consistency without erasing the identities of schools, departments, centers and programs. Storyblok, supported by modern front-end architecture and disciplined governance, provides the platform foundation needed to deliver that model at scale.

Across the Siteimprove and Americaneagle.com sessions, the same operational message surfaced repeatedly: technology alone will not modernize Rice’s digital ecosystem. Sustainable progress depends on content cleanup, cross-functional ownership, training, clear publishing standards, reusable components, continuous measurement and dedicated capacity. The transition must empower distributed editors while preserving enterprise guardrails for accessibility, brand, security, quality and maintainability.

Central takeaway: Rice’s modernization effort is not a one-time redesign or a simple CMS replacement. It is an institutional operating model that connects accessible content, accountable governance, reusable design, modern technology and continuous improvement.

Key Themes Across the Retreat

• Accessibility is the foundation for compliance, usability, discoverability and long-term digital quality.

• Automated scanning accelerates remediation, but manual testing and human judgment remain essential.

• Content authority depends on accuracy, structure, clear sourcing, descriptive language and ongoing stewardship.

• Rice’s decentralized web environment needs shared rules and reusable foundations that can scale across hundreds of sites.

• A mature design system should balance inclusivity, cohesion, local expression and durability.

• Storyblok was recommended as the CMS platform best aligned with distributed publishing, visual editing, reusable content, omnichannel delivery, technical SEO and AI readiness.

• Editors and site owners must actively improve accessibility, consolidate duplicative content, clean up what remains and retire outdated material before migration.

Siteimprove + Rice University Training Workshop

The Siteimprove workshop focused on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 and their practical role in building more inclusive digital experiences. The session connected accessibility to U.S. requirements such as Title II and Section 504, as well as the European Accessibility Act. Speakers emphasized that meaningful accessibility requires a hybrid testing strategy: automated tools can identify issues at scale, while manual review is necessary to evaluate context, usability and the experiences of people who use assistive technology.

The workshop also introduced Siteimprove’s automated checks, prioritization tools, policy capabilities, learning resources and PDF features. Throughout the session, presenters framed accessibility as an ongoing organizational practice rather than a one-time remediation exercise.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Christina Adams, CPWA, Senior Manager of Digital Accessibility, explained that WCAG was created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to provide internationally recognized, testable standards and techniques for digital accessibility. WCAG aligns with major accessibility requirements in the United States and abroad, making it a practical foundation for institutional policy, testing and remediation.

The session traced the evolution of the standard from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.2. WCAG 2.1 remains widely referenced because legislative and regulatory adoption often lags behind technical standards. WCAG 3.0 is under development and is expected to change how accessibility is evaluated, but it remains a draft and is still years away from becoming a regulatory benchmark.

The Four WCAG Principles: POUR

WCAG is organized around four foundational principles, commonly remembered through the acronym POUR:

• Perceivable. Information and interface elements cannot be invisible to a person’s available senses. Content must be presented in ways users can perceive.

• Operable. The interface cannot require an interaction that a user cannot perform. People must be able to navigate and operate controls through supported input methods.

• Understandable. Content and interactions must be clear enough for users to comprehend. Instructions, labels, navigation and behavior should be predictable and understandable.

• Robust. Content must be reliably interpreted by a wide range of browsers, devices, user agents and assistive technologies.

How WCAG Is Structured

Christina described WCAG as a layered framework that moves from broad principles to guidelines, testable success criteria and implementation techniques. Success criteria translate higher-level accessibility goals into evaluable requirements. Sufficient techniques demonstrate accepted ways to meet a criterion, while advisory techniques offer additional practices that can strengthen the experience.

Success criteria are grouped into Levels A, AA and AAA. Level A addresses the most fundamental barriers. Level AA expands the standard and is the level most commonly used for institutional and regulatory conformance. Level AAA includes advanced techniques that can further improve the user experience, although full-site AAA conformance is not typically treated as the baseline requirement.

Why Digital Accessibility Matters

The workshop emphasized the scale and immediacy of the need: approximately one in four people in the United States has a disability. Because many interactions now begin on a phone or website rather than through an office visit, digital access directly affects whether people can obtain information, complete tasks and participate fully in university life. Global regulations establish minimum expectations, but the practical goal is to create experiences that work for people.

Siteimprove was introduced as the automated testing and monitoring platform supporting this work. Automated checks can rapidly surface patterns and prioritize likely barriers, but they do not replace manual review. The strongest program combines platform data, human testing, clear ownership and repeatable remediation workflows.

A Change-Management Approach to Accessibility

Christina organized accessibility change management around three questions: why the work matters, who must participate and how improvement will be sustained. Building awareness and empathy helps teams understand the human impact of inaccessible experiences. Cross-functional collaboration brings content, design, development, communications and leadership into the same program. Leadership support, in turn, creates the accountability and capacity required for long-term progress.

The session also encouraged teams to evaluate emerging technology and AI-enabled tools that may accelerate parts of the accessibility workflow. These tools should support, rather than replace, informed human review and organizational responsibility.

Hands-On Platform Training

Anthony Burr, Higher Education Account Executive, introduced Adam Stephenson, Senior Manager of Customer Success, to lead the hands-on Siteimprove training. Adam connected the platform to education and a broader success framework, then demonstrated practical ways to work more efficiently within the system.

• Use the in-platform Resource Center and Help Center for guidance and troubleshooting.

• Use the Learning Hub for structured accessibility courses and continued skill development.

• Sort, filter and create views to focus attention on the issues with the greatest impact or the clearest path to resolution.

• Treat the platform as a prioritization and management tool, not simply as a list of errors.

Using Policies to Create Rice-Specific Rules

Adam introduced Siteimprove Policies, which allow teams to define custom rules beyond standard accessibility and quality checks. The platform includes pre-built policies for common concerns, such as short words repeated in succession, and it allows users to create Rice-specific policies for webpage content, documents and media.

The demonstration covered how to add and manage policies, define their scope and generate detailed reports. Used consistently, policies can translate institutional standards into measurable checks and help teams identify recurring content patterns across the ecosystem.

Managing PDFs, False Positives and Broken Links

The workshop acknowledged that PDFs remain one of the most difficult areas of accessibility management. Siteimprove’s PDF Audit can locate PDFs across a website and surface issues for remediation. PDF Validate allows users to upload up to 10 PDFs for accessibility review before publication. Adam also demonstrated how to dismiss confirmed false positives and manage broken-link findings to keep reports actionable.

Anthony noted that PDF remediation requires additional discussion, strategy and tooling. Public-facing websites were identified as the immediate compliance priority, and future sessions were proposed to address PDFs and other persistent accessibility challenges in greater depth. The session closed by encouraging participants to ask questions and use the available support resources.

2. The Hidden Benefits of Great Digital Modernization

This session expanded the conversation from compliance to the broader strategic value of accessible, well-structured digital content. Speakers examined how AI is changing university discovery, why content authority matters and how accessibility and technical quality strengthen Rice’s visibility across traditional search and AI-assisted experiences.

The session also celebrated measurable progress. Rice reported an average Site Target score of 91.82 percent, and the School of Humanities and Arts achieved a 97 percent increase in its accessibility score. The discussion reinforced that these gains come from coordinated teams, repeatable training, visible leadership support and continued investment.

AI’s Impact on University Search and Content Authority

Matt Hause, Director of Higher Education, explained that prospective students increasingly form opinions about universities before visiting an institutional website. AI-generated answers, search summaries and conversational tools now shape early impressions, changing the work from a narrow focus on traditional rankings to a broader focus on content authority.

In this environment, citation, structure, accuracy and clarity influence whether institutional content can be understood and trusted by both people and machines. Digital accessibility supports that authority because accessible content is typically more clearly labeled, consistently structured and easier for multiple technologies to interpret. Accessibility, technical SEO and AI readiness should therefore be managed as connected disciplines.

Maintaining Visibility and Building Stakeholder Support

Matt outlined the need for a deliberate, sustained program to preserve institutional authority. Accessibility and technical SEO form the foundation, but content owners must keep information accurate, up to date, and clearly connected to the questions audiences are asking.

When an audience member asked how to secure stakeholder buy-in, the discussion emphasized simple visuals, clear communication and practical scripts that explain the value of the work. Descriptive links, precise language, visible sourcing and current information improve the user experience while also helping search engines and AI systems interpret content. Anthony cited the University of Cincinnati’s modernization efforts as an example of the value of machine-readable content and shared digital foundations.

Content Practices for Higher Education

A question about research centers highlighted the challenge of keeping specialized content accurate and up to date over time. Matt recommended using news posts, research updates, and frequently asked questions to refresh subject areas, answer current audience needs, and incorporate relevant language naturally.

Jeff added that older content does not automatically lose its value. Legacy material can continue to contribute authority when it remains accurate, is refreshed as needed and is meaningfully referenced from current publishing. The goal is not constant rewriting; it is active stewardship of a connected body of trustworthy information.

Progress and Recognition

Anthony summarized progress from the preceding 90 days, including the growing number of websites represented in the platform and Rice’s 91.82 percent average Site Target score. The School of Humanities and Arts was highlighted for its 9.7 percent increase in accessibility performance. The Office of Enrollment for Admission and the School of Engineering and Computing were also recognized for progress in accessibility and quality assurance.

Jeff emphasized that improvement at this scale requires continued investment and dedicated staff. Platform access and awareness can begin the work, but sustainable remediation depends on people who have the time, training and authority to act on findings.

The School of Humanities and Arts: A Team-Based Model

John Waterhouse, Director of Communications, described the School of Humanities and Arts’ progress in modernization as a team effort grounded in training and shared responsibility. The school had to manage multiple sites, identify recurring issues and coordinate remediation across a distributed content environment.

John emphasized the value of sharing lessons and recording training sessions so that others can repeat improvements. When Melanie asked how the school handled the unpublishing of legacy pages, the response described a trust-and-verification model: content owners participate in decisions, while the team confirms that material can be retired without creating unintended gaps.

The discussion also addressed the need to write for contemporary discovery systems, including algorithms, without sacrificing usefulness for people. Clear headings, precise language, current information and meaningful context strengthen both human understanding and machine interpretation. Melanie closed the segment by reinforcing the need for continued investment, dedicated capacity and a culture of continuous improvement.

3. Americaneagle.com: Building the Future of the Rice Digital Ecosystem

Americaneagle.com framed Rice’s web modernization effort as an opportunity to create a single, coherent university digital ecosystem while preserving the flexibility needed by schools, departments, centers, programs, and other units. The session connected accessibility, security, AI readiness, governance, content structure and design systems to the practical realities of a large multi-site environment.

The presenters described an ecosystem of 354 sites with more than 20,000 unique customizations. Those customizations may address legitimate local needs, but without common protocols, they also create fragmentation, governance gaps, inconsistent experiences, and significant remediation and maintenance overhead. The proposed direction uses shared taxonomy, reusable content and an atomic design system to create cohesion without eliminating local expression.

Current-State Challenges

• A highly decentralized environment of 354 independently managed sites makes coordinated remediation difficult and creates operational blockers.

• More than 20,000 unique customizations contribute to governance gaps, inconsistent behavior and long-term maintenance burden.

• Without a shared protocol, accessibility fixes cannot reliably cascade across the ecosystem, slowing remediation and increasing duplicated effort.

• Local overrides and inline changes have fragmented the digital experience and made standards harder to enforce.

What the Future Ecosystem Must Provide

• Accessibility is the primary driver and a built-in expectation of every digital experience.

• Stronger discoverability and AI readiness through structured, authoritative content.

• Improved security across the technology ecosystem.

• Straightforward daily content management for non-developers, with scalable tools for developers.

• A cohesive university presence that can serve prospective students, current students, faculty, staff, alumni, partners and the public.

• Shared taxonomy, reusable content and a platform that can evolve continuously as needs and technologies change.

Americaneagle.com’s Experience and Perspective

Amanda D. introduced Americaneagle.com’s history, beginning with Apple II software in 1978 and expanding into digital services in 1994. The Chicago-headquartered, family-owned company has more than 700 full-time employees and works across multiple industries. Examples referenced during the session included United Airlines, the Green Bay Packers, the YMCA, Southern New Hampshire University and Allstate.

These examples were used to demonstrate experience with complex digital programs that must support broad audiences, meet high expectations, and sustain operational change. In higher education, that challenge is amplified because a single university ecosystem must communicate effectively with many distinct groups while remaining coherent and unmistakably connected to the institution.

The Modernization Problem at Rice

Matt A. presented research supporting the modernization effort, with accessibility as the central concern. He used a hotel analogy to illustrate the difficulty of managing hundreds of independent sites: individual spaces may have legitimate needs and distinct identities, but the broader experience cannot be maintained efficiently if every location changes its structure, controls and standards independently.

The current environment’s scale and customization make it difficult to implement fixes consistently, maintain quality and evolve the ecosystem. Modernization, therefore, requires more than new page designs. Rice needs common technical and governance foundations that allow shared improvements to reach many sites while still accommodating well-defined local needs.

Higher Education Trends

Mark S. connected Rice’s challenges to broader trends in higher education. Universities are working through accumulated legacy content, unresolved centralization-versus-decentralization questions and rapid shifts in technology platforms. At the same time, AI is changing how prospective students research institutions and move through the admissions process.

The practical response is continuous improvement built on shared digital foundations. Universities need systems that can adapt to changing audience behavior, publishing priorities, accessibility expectations and technology without requiring every unit to rebuild independently.

Case Studies: Harvard and Vanderbilt

Harvard was presented as an example of editorial coordination supported by structured content and shared taxonomy. Its model can assemble dynamic homepage experiences from a governed body of content rather than treating each page as an isolated publishing destination.

Vanderbilt was presented as an example of a global brand system built from reusable components. Shared building blocks create consistency across the ecosystem while allowing individual units to manage relevant content and express appropriate distinctions. Together, the examples demonstrated that cohesive branding depends on both visible design standards and the less-visible editorial and platform systems behind them.

Atomic Design and the Role of a Design System

Mark introduced atomic design as a method for building digital experiences from small, reusable elements into progressively larger components and page patterns. Atoms form the basic elements; those elements combine into molecules and larger structures that can be assembled consistently across many sites.

The proposed design system includes three connected dimensions: structure, including pages, templates and sites; practice, including guidance for how components should be used; and platform, including the reusable building blocks available to content teams. Examples from Panasonic and Colorado State University illustrated how a shared system can reduce overhead, reinforce consistency and make ongoing site management easier.

Four Outcomes the Ecosystem Must Balance

• Inclusivity. Meet the needs of diverse users, content teams, technologies and accessibility requirements.

• Cohesion. Create a unified Rice experience across sites, channels and organizational boundaries.

• Expressiveness. Allow appropriate local identity and communication while operating within shared institutional standards.

• Durability. Create an ecosystem that can adapt as strategy, audience expectations and technology evolve.

Achieving all four outcomes requires collaboration. The design system and platform must be informed by the real needs of campus partners, and those needs must align with enterprise goals and sustainable operating standards. The tone of the session remained constructive and opportunity-focused: the challenges are substantial, but they can be addressed through practical shared foundations. A Siteimprove-related deadline was also cited as a near-term driver for collective progress.

4. The Platform Foundation That Makes the Vision Possible

Matt A. transitioned from design-system strategy to the technology foundation that supports it. He introduced Wes M. to explain the underlying platform model, the role of the content management system and the proposed alternative to Drupal. Matt also noted that Public Affairs’ survey results would inform the conversation, although the presentation would synthesize the findings rather than review every response individually.

The discussion then focused on the transition from Drupal to Storyblok as the proposed CMS for the broader Rice digital ecosystem. Storyblok was presented as a visual, API-first, headless, and composable platform designed to support modern front-end technologies, reusable content, distributed publishing, structured data, and AI-assisted discovery.

Current State and Project Priorities

Wes began with the current state, including accessibility challenges and limitations in the existing content management experience. Drupal remains Rice’s current enterprise CMS, but the modernization effort requires a platform that can more effectively empower individual authors while supporting institution-wide standards.

The platform discussion was organized around three connected priorities:

1. Publishing needs. Give editors and site owners a practical, sustainable authoring experience that supports distributed publishing.

2. Infrastructure considerations. Provide a modern, secure, and scalable foundation for delivery, integration, and continued evolution.

3. Elevating the web experience. Improve the quality, consistency, accessibility and usefulness of the experience delivered to audiences.

Why Storyblok Was Introduced

Wes introduced Storyblok as the proposed replacement for Drupal, emphasizing its combination of visual editing and structured content management. Storyblok was described as an emerging leader in the CMS market, with an active community and industry recognition. It is a partner of Americaneagle.com but remains a separate organization and product company.

The intended scope extends across the Rice digital ecosystem, not only the primary rice.edu experience. This enterprise direction reflects the need for a common platform model that can support multiple sites, audiences, publishing teams and delivery channels.

Drupal and Storyblok: Architectural Differences

Drupal was acknowledged as a capable enterprise platform with a mature technical operating model. However, its monolithic, form-driven authoring pattern and the accumulated complexity of Rice’s implementation were presented as less aligned with the modernization program’s goals.

Storyblok natively supports structured content models and explicit relationships among content items. Its API-first architecture separates content management from front-end presentation, allowing the same governed content to be delivered to websites and other channels. The authoring experience is fully visual and contextual, in contrast to Drupal’s primarily form-based editing workflow.

The Visual Editor and Reusable Content

Wes demonstrated how Storyblok’s visual editor lets authors preview a page and edit content in context. Drag-and-drop tools make page composition more approachable, while approved components and design-system rules establish boundaries that protect accessibility, brand consistency and technical quality.

This model is intended to empower individual authors without giving every site an entirely independent technical implementation. Reusable content components can be maintained once and presented in multiple appropriate locations, reducing duplication and helping the ecosystem remain consistent over time. Central control and distributed publishing are therefore treated as complementary parts of the same model.

Change Management and the Authoring Experience

Wes emphasized that the transition must be managed as an organizational change, not simply a software deployment. Editors need training, understandable workflows, clear permissions, dependable support and confidence that the new system will make routine work easier.

Because Storyblok is headless and composable, it can deliver content across channels and integrate with other technologies without forcing content teams to manage each destination separately. The system can accommodate multiple content types and serve diverse stakeholder needs while maintaining centralized standards and appropriate local autonomy.

AI Discoverability and Technical SEO

Storyblok’s structured-content model was presented as a stronger foundation for technical SEO and AI discovery than content embedded within a tightly coupled monolithic implementation. Content can be paired with schema and consistent metadata so that search engines, AI systems and other services can interpret its meaning and relationships more reliably.

Wes described the platform’s structure and flexibility as advantages for AI-enabled discovery and larger ecosystem integrations. He also referenced emerging capabilities, such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and invited continued discussion on how those capabilities may support future workflows.

Scorecard and Recommendation

A scorecard comparison acknowledged Drupal’s enterprise scale and established technical model while concluding that Storyblok aligns more closely with Rice’s modernization requirements. Storyblok was recommended because it better supports distributed publishing, visual editing, structured and reusable content, modern front-end flexibility and delivery across multiple channels.

The recommendation was framed as a strategic modernization decision rather than a preference for a newer tool. The objective is to improve operational efficiency, strengthen accessibility and governance, support modern discovery and create a platform foundation that can evolve with Rice’s needs.

Actions and Next Steps

Melanie S. closed the presentation with four immediate actions for Rice’s distributed web community:

1. Improve accessibility. Identify and remediate barriers so content and experiences move steadily toward the university’s accessibility expectations.

2. Clean up content. Correct errors, clarify language, strengthen structure and prepare high-value material for migration.

3. Consolidate content. Reduce duplication and establish clearer authoritative sources for information that appears across multiple sites.

4. Retire outdated content. Unpublish material that is inaccurate, obsolete, duplicative, unsupported or no longer useful.

The team reiterated that a website is available for project updates and that web requests should be submitted through the established Asana form. Editors and content owners are essential partners in the transition because the new platform cannot compensate for inaccurate, duplicative or unmanaged content.

Q&A and Closing Commitments

During the closing discussion, Jon-Paul E. responded to questions about the new CMS and transition process. He reinforced the need for content editor participation, the use of the Asana intake form for web requests, and Rice’s commitment to continue supporting Drupal until the transition is complete.

Melanie provided additional context on the scale of the modernization program and the need to prioritize enterprise-wide work. The retreat concluded with a commitment to continued communication, collaboration, training and practical support as Rice moves from planning into implementation.

5. Consolidated Direction for Rice

Taken together, the retreat sessions define a clear sequence for Rice’s digital modernization. Accessibility and content quality come first because they determine whether information can be used, trusted, discovered and migrated responsibly. Governance and a shared design system then turn institutional standards into repeatable patterns. Storyblok and the surrounding technical architecture provide the foundation for delivering those patterns consistently across a large, distributed ecosystem.

The work will succeed only if Rice pairs platform investment with operational discipline. Content owners must maintain accurate information. Editors must be trained and supported. Designers and developers must use shared components. Leaders must fund dedicated capacity and reinforce accountability. Teams must measure progress and continue improving after launch.

Bottom line: Rice now has a connected strategy for moving from fragmented sites and reactive remediation to an accessible, governed, reusable and future-ready digital ecosystem. The immediate task is to convert that strategy into coordinated content, governance, design-system, training and platform work across the university.

Institutional Priorities

1. Continue accessibility remediation using Siteimprove, manual testing, clear ownership and role-based education.

2. Prepare content for migration by correcting, consolidating and retiring material before it enters the new ecosystem.

3. Establish shared governance, taxonomy, and design system rules that scale across schools, departments, centers, programs, and channels.

4. Implement Storyblok as the structured, visual, API-first CMS foundation, supported by modern front-end delivery and appropriate enterprise integrations.

5. Support distributed editors with training, permissions, workflows, documentation and ongoing assistance.

6. Track accessibility, quality, discoverability, adoption and operational performance as continuous measures of success.

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