# Journey 2: Cold landing on a school detail page (SEO long tail) — audit notes

**Pages visited:** `/school/136916-the-castle-school` (secondary), `/school/146678-welland-primary-school` (primary), `/compare` (reached via the compare CTA)
**Viewports:** 390×844 (primary), 1440×900 (+720×450 for 200% reflow)
**Site:** live https://schoolcompare.co.uk only. Read-only: navigated, tapped "Add to Compare", switched chart tabs; submitted no data-modifying forms.

## Task attempt log

**Cold-landing premise:** each school URL was the *first* navigation into the site (simulating a Google arrival), so first-screen orientation is judged with zero prior context.

**Mobile (390×844) — Cold landing A: The Castle School (secondary, Somerset).**
- Above the fold, top→bottom: header (logo + Search/Compare/Rankings/Admissions), "← Back", a **Leaflet map**, then the school identity block. **The single most important element — the H1 "The Castle School" — is crushed between two overlapping elements:** the map (bbox bottom 280px) sits over the top of the H1 (top 272px) and the floating **"+ Add to Compare"** button (top 286px) sits over its lower half (H1 bottom 309px). Only a ~6px band of the name is unobscured. Screenshot `j2-school-mobile-fold.png` shows the name almost illegible. So the answer to "what school is this?" — the first cold-landing question — is broken on the primary viewport.
- "What site is this?" is answerable (SchoolCompare logo + bottom tab bar). "What does the site offer?" is *not* stated on the school page — no value proposition or "compare schools" framing above the fold.
- Scrolled the full 3,748px page. Section order: Ofsted → GCSE Results (2024/25) → Admissions → Historical Results → Wellbeing & Context → footer. Screenshots `j2-school-mobile-full.png`, `j2-school-mobile-gcse.png`, `j2-school-mobile-history.png`.
  - **Ofsted:** clear ("Outstanding"), dated (Inspected 3 Oct 2023), links to the real Ofsted report, and includes a current-aware note about the post-Sept-2024 grading change. Comprehensible.
  - **GCSE:** rich and comparison-anchored (Attainment 8 53.4 / National avg 39.1 / "+14 pts"), with a plain caption and a "treat Progress 8 with caution" note. **But the jargon is unexplained in place:** "Attainment 8", "Progress 8", "EBacc average point score 4.72" have no tooltip/expander/definition (0 info affordances found in DOM). The plain-English definition *exists on the site* ("Average grade across a pupil's best 8 GCSEs including English and Maths") but only appears on `/compare`, not where a parent first meets the term.
  - **Historical chart:** renders on scroll (the blank in the full-page capture was a lazy-render artifact, not a bug). Series = solid teal (school) + grey dashed (national) with **no visible legend**, and a data gap 2018/19→2023/24 is bridged by the line.
  - **Admissions:** legible; surfaces the decision-critical "⚠ Applications exceeded places last year" and honestly states cut-off data is unavailable.
- **Next-step paths.** "+ Add to Compare" exists (overlapping the H1). There is **no "schools near this one" / "similar schools" module anywhere on the page** — the page ends at Wellbeing → footer.
  - **Taps to a comparison including this school:** Tap 1 = "+ Add to Compare" (button → "✓ In Comparison", bottom Compare tab shows a "1" badge; no toast). Tap 2 = Compare tab → `/compare?urns=136916`, "Comparing 1 school". Screenshots `j2-school-mobile-compare-added.png`, `j2-compare-oneschool-mobile.png`. So **2 taps to a compare *view* containing the school, but a real 2-school comparison requires "+ Add School" then a manual name search** — because no nearby/similar list is offered, the parent must already know the competitor's name.

**Mobile — Cold landing B: Welland Primary School (primary, Worcestershire) — contrasting data.**
- **Same H1-overlap bug recurs** (map bottom 264 > H1 top 256; "+ Add to Compare" top 270 < H1 bottom 278) — confirming it is *systemic to the school template*, not school-specific. Screenshot `j2-welland-mobile-full.png`.
- Primary (KS2) page handles the same data class **markedly better**: caption "End-of-primary-school tests taken by Year 6 pupils"; a standout in-place explainer — *"Why is combined lower? A pupil is only counted if they met the bar in all three subjects…"* — which answers a real parent question without leaving the page; subject bar charts carry a legend (Expected standard / Exceeding / National average); "Pupil Premium 26.0% — Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds" is expanded.
- **Missing-data handling is graceful:** "*No data for 2019/20 or 2020/21 — national assessments were cancelled due to COVID-19*" and "Historical distance cut-off data is not available… Contact the admissions authority." No broken/empty UI. No layout breakage beyond the shared H1 overlap.

**Desktop (1440×900) — reload of The Castle School.**
- Fold is clean (`j2-school-desktop-fold.png`): H1 large and legible (the map's ~8px overlap is imperceptible with the compare button moved to the top-right), full section-nav pills visible (Top/Ofsted/GCSEs/Admissions/History/Wellbeing), and a persistent **"1 school selected" compare tray** at bottom-centre (a desktop-only affordance mobile lacks).
- Chart legibility: bars and axis labels are clear; the "Nat avg 39.1" badge overlaps the chart *heading* text (minor).
- Keyboard: logical order (skip → logo → nav → Back → …), every stop shows a **2px solid orange (#E07256) focus outline**, including the in-`main` "← Back" button.
- Link affordance: in-content links (School website, Ofsted reports) are teal with **no underline** — distinguished from body text by colour plus an "↗" glyph for external links; "View on map" is an orange button. Clickable-looking to sighted users but colour-dependent.

## Friction points

- **F1. School name (H1) is overlapped/obscured by the map and the "Add to Compare" button on mobile — systemic**
  - Evidence: Measured bboxes on both schools — Castle: map bottom 280 / H1 top 272 / compare-btn top 286 / H1 bottom 309; Welland: map bottom 264 / H1 top 256 / compare-btn top 270 / H1 bottom 278. Screenshots `j2-school-mobile-fold.png`, `j2-welland-mobile-full.png`.
  - Criterion violated: Nielsen #1 (Visibility of system status) & #8 (Aesthetic & minimalist design); task-flow obstruction of cold-landing orientation; overlap defeats WCAG 1.4.10 Reflow's intent (content should not be obscured on the primary viewport).
  - Argument: On a Google cold landing the very first question is "is this the school I searched for?" The H1 that answers it is crushed to a ~6px sliver between the map and a CTA on the 390px viewport — the exact first-screen orientation failure that drives immediate back-to-search bounces, on the site's highest-traffic SEO template.
  - Severity guess: P1 (candidate P0 — primary content, main template, primary viewport)

- **F2. No "schools near this one" / similar-schools path — the compare value prop has no on-ramp**
  - Evidence: Full-page snapshots of both schools show sections Ofsted→GCSE/KS2→Admissions→History→Wellbeing→footer with **no nearby/similar-schools module**. Reaching a 2-school comparison requires Compare → "+ Add School" → manual name search (`j2-compare-oneschool-mobile.png`).
  - Criterion violated: Nielsen #7 (Flexibility & efficiency of use); task-flow obstruction — the site's core differentiator ("compare") is unreachable from the highest-traffic entry point without prior knowledge.
  - Argument: A parent landing cold on one school has nothing to weigh it against and no way to discover the alternatives they came to compare; the compare tool assumes they already know competitor names. At the moment of maximum intent, the site offers no lateral discovery, so the parent bounces back to Google to find other local schools.
  - Severity guess: P1

- **F3. GCSE jargon (Attainment 8, Progress 8, EBacc) unexplained in place on the secondary school page**
  - Evidence: GCSE section shows "Attainment 8 score 53.4", "EBacc average point score 4.72" with national averages but no definitions; 0 tooltip/info affordances in the DOM. The plain-English definition exists only on `/compare` ("Average grade across a pupil's best 8 GCSEs including English and Maths"). Screenshot `j2-school-mobile-gcse.png`.
  - Criterion violated: Nielsen #2 (Match between system and the real world) & #10 (Help & documentation).
  - Argument: A non-specialist parent cannot judge whether "53.4" or "4.72" is good without knowing the scale/meaning. The site *has* the explanation but withholds it at first contact, forcing recall or a bounce. The national-average anchoring softens this but does not define the metric. (The primary page does this far better — see Works well.)
  - Severity guess: P2

- **F4. Serious colour-contrast failures on the school template**
  - Evidence: axe `color-contrast` (serious, **13 nodes**) on the Castle page — sample targets `…backBtn` ("← Back"), `…mapLink` ("View on map"), `…tabBtnActive` (active metric tab). Recurs from Journey 1 F4 (also seen on home).
  - Criterion violated: WCAG 2.2 **1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (AA)**.
  - Argument: Low-contrast Back, "View on map" and active-tab text are harder to read for low-vision parents and for everyone on a phone in daylight — the mobile-primary audience — on the main content template.
  - Severity guess: P1

- **F5. Trend/results charts expose no text alternative to assistive tech**
  - Evidence: axe `role-img-alt` (serious) on the `<canvas>` chart on **both** pages (Castle GCSE trend; Welland KS2 chart `canvas[height="220"]`). WCAG-mapped tag failure.
  - Criterion violated: WCAG 2.2 **1.1.1 Non-text Content (A)**.
  - Argument: The key data visualisation — performance over time — is invisible to a screen-reader parent; they get no equivalent from the chart. A "View raw year-by-year data" expander partially mitigates the trend chart, but the canvas itself still announces nothing. Level-A failure on the main template.
  - Severity guess: P1

- **F6. Chart interpretation aids are weak: no legend for the national-average series; label overlap**
  - Evidence: Historical trend chart shows a grey dashed line (national) with no visible legend (`j2-school-mobile-history.png`); the "Nat avg 39.1" badge overlaps the "ATTAINMENT 8 — SCHOOL VS NATIONAL" heading (`j2-school-mobile-gcse.png`).
  - Criterion violated: Nielsen #1 (Visibility of system status) & #8 (Aesthetic & minimalist); task-flow (data interpretation).
  - Argument: A non-specialist can't reliably tell what the second (dashed) line represents without a legend, undermining the core "vs national" comparison; the badge/heading overlap erodes the polish that signals a trustworthy data source. (Notably, the *primary* subject charts DO carry a legend — inconsistent.)
  - Severity guess: P2

- **F7. Sticky in-page section nav clips its last items on mobile with no scroll affordance**
  - Evidence: On 390px, "History" (right edge 397px) and "Wellbeing" (right 480px) render off-screen; the nav row is 448px wide and is not horizontally scrollable (document scrollWidth stays 390 — clipped, not scrollable). Screenshot `j2-school-mobile-gcse.png` (nav shows "…Admissions  Histo").
  - Criterion violated: Mobile usability (interactive content must be reachable within the viewport); Nielsen #7 (Flexibility & efficiency).
  - Argument: 2 of 6 in-page jump links are unreachable via the sticky nav on the primary viewport, so a parent can't quickly jump to the SEN/Wellbeing or History data — they must hunt by scrolling, weakening the nav's purpose. (Content is still reachable by scrolling, so not a hard block.)
  - Severity guess: P2

- **F8. "Add to Compare" confirmation is easy to miss**
  - Evidence: After tapping, no toast/live-region message fired (`role=alert`/`role=status` empty); feedback is only the button relabel ("✓ In Comparison") — which sits in the overlapped/obscured H1 zone (F1) — plus a small "1" badge on the bottom Compare tab.
  - Criterion violated: Nielsen #1 (Visibility of system status).
  - Argument: The relabel is reasonable feedback, but because it lands in the visually crowded overlap area and there's no explicit confirmation or "view your shortlist" nudge, a parent may not register that the action succeeded or know where the shortlist lives.
  - Severity guess: P3

## Works well — keep
- **Strong identity + facts block (when not overlapped).** Both pages lead with a located map plus address, headteacher, official school website, MAT/trust, and pupils-vs-capacity — exactly the orientation facts a cold visitor needs. The raw material is excellent; only the F1 overlap spoils it on mobile.
- **The primary (KS2) page explains its data in plain English.** Caption "End-of-primary-school tests taken by Year 6 pupils"; the "Why is combined lower?" explainer answers a genuine parent question *in place*; subject charts carry a legend. This is the model the secondary page (F3/F6) should follow.
- **Everything is anchored to the national average** ("+14 pts", "National avg 39.1", "National avg 62%") — lets a non-specialist judge good/bad without leaving the page.
- **Graceful, honest missing-data handling.** "No data for 2019/20 or 2020/21 — national assessments cancelled due to COVID-19"; "Historical distance cut-off data is not available… contact the admissions authority." No broken or empty UI where data is absent.
- **Ofsted section is clear, current, and trustworthy.** Grade + inspection date, the post-Sept-2024 grading-change note, and a link to the actual Ofsted report.
- **Decision-critical admissions fact is surfaced** ("⚠ Applications exceeded places last year") rather than buried in a table.
- **Desktop is clean and accessible.** No H1 overlap, full section nav visible, persistent compare tray, legible charts; logical keyboard order with a visible 2px orange focus outline on every control incl. the in-`main` Back button; 200% reflow (720px) has no horizontal scroll.
- **Compare metric definitions exist** (on `/compare`) and the shortlist persists via localStorage — the explanatory content is written, just not surfaced on the detail page.

## Axe results
- `/school/136916-the-castle-school` @ 390×844 & 1440×900 (same DOM/CSS): **2 violations** — `color-contrast` (serious, 13 nodes: backBtn, mapLink, tabBtnActive), `role-img-alt` (serious, 1 node: chart `canvas`).
- `/school/146678-welland-primary-school` @ 390×844: **1 violation** — `role-img-alt` (serious, 1 node: `canvas[height="220"]` KS2 chart). No `color-contrast` violation was reported on this page's rendered DOM.

## Manual WCAG spot checks
- **Touch targets ≥24px:** Pass (marginal). "← Back" button measures 64×28px (meets the 24px minimum but is the smallest); "+ Add to Compare", metric tabs and section-nav pills are comfortably sized. WCAG 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) met.
- **Keyboard: tab order, focus visibility (desktop):** Pass — order is logical (skip → logo → nav → Back → content), and every stop including the in-`main` Back button shows a clear 2px solid orange (#E07256) outline.
- **Zoom 200% text reflow (desktop):** Pass — at 720px width the school page has no horizontal scroll (scrollWidth == clientWidth == 720).

## "Parent lands here from Google — what makes them stay vs bounce?"
**Would stay because:** the page answers the real questions — Ofsted grade (with a link to the source and an up-to-date grading note), results anchored to the national average, admissions pressure ("applications exceeded places"), and — on primary — plain-English explanations and honest COVID/data-gap handling. That is a credible, decision-useful page.
**Would bounce because:** (1) on the primary mobile viewport the **school name itself is obscured** by the map + compare button (F1), so the first "is this the right school?" glance fails; (2) there is **no way to discover or reach comparable nearby schools** (F2) — the site's whole reason to exist is invisible from its highest-traffic entry point, so a parent leaves to find alternatives elsewhere; (3) on secondary pages the **key numbers are jargon** with no in-place definition (F3/F6), so a non-specialist can't interpret them.
**Highest-leverage fixes:** un-overlap the H1 (F1); add a "Nearby / similar schools — add to compare" module to the detail page (F2); reuse the existing `/compare` metric definitions as in-place tooltips/captions on the detail page (F3/F6).

## Screenshots
- `j2-school-mobile-fold.png`: Castle mobile first screen — H1 crushed between map and "+ Add to Compare".
- `j2-school-mobile-full.png`: full Castle mobile page — section order Ofsted→GCSE→Admissions→History→Wellbeing.
- `j2-school-mobile-gcse.png`: Castle GCSE section — jargon without definitions; "Nat avg 39.1" badge overlapping the chart heading; section nav clipped ("Histo").
- `j2-school-mobile-history.png`: Castle trend chart — national series is an unlabelled grey dashed line; data gap bridged.
- `j2-school-mobile-compare-added.png`: after "Add to Compare" — "✓ In Comparison" + bottom-tab "1" badge, no toast; button still over the H1.
- `j2-compare-oneschool-mobile.png`: `/compare` with one school — where metric definitions (Attainment 8) actually appear.
- `j2-welland-mobile-full.png`: Welland (primary) full page — same H1 overlap; strong in-place KS2 explainers and graceful missing-data handling.
- `j2-school-desktop-fold.png`: Castle desktop fold — clean H1, full section nav, persistent compare tray.
