Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research universities: usability rankings

Usability scores, grades, and the most common failures for 7 Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research university websites, from ScanGov homepage scans.

  • Sites: 7
  • Last scan: 11/8/2026

Showing Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research university sites. All education sites

R1 and R2 universities in the Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV metropolitan area, public and private together. Metro boundaries follow the Census definition, so a page can cross state lines.

C 75

Average usability score of 5 fully scanned Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research university sites

4th

of 8 metro areas, ranked by average usability score

5 of 7

Washington, dc-va-md-wv research university sites fully scanned. We couldn't fully scan 2, so they're listed without grades

D 68

Average usability score of all 2,687 fully scanned education sites

How Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV usability scores are distributed

Smoothed distribution of the 5 fully scanned Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research university sites, score 0 to 100. Height shows how many sites score near each value.

  • Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV average
  • All education average
View the data table
Score rangeSites
0 to 90
10 to 190
20 to 290
30 to 390
40 to 490
50 to 591
60 to 691
70 to 791
80 to 891
90 to 1001

Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research universities by usability grade, compared with all education sites

Share of fully scanned sites in each grade band. Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research universities: 5 sites. All education: 2687 sites.

  1. Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV
  2. All education sites
  • A (90 to 100)
  • B to C (70 to 89)
  • D to F (below 70)
View the data table
GroupA (90 to 100)B to C (70 to 89)D to F (below 70)
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV20% (1)40% (2)40% (2)
All education sites11% (289)42% (1,124)47% (1,274)

Top 3 Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research university sites by usability score

#1 in Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV · U.S. education rank 2

George Washington University

A 93 usability

  • Accessibility A
  • Botability C
  • Security B
  • Usability A
  • Readability F

#2 in Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV · U.S. education rank 9

University of Maryland-College Park

B 81 usability

  • Accessibility A
  • Botability A
  • Security A
  • Usability B
  • Readability F

#3 in Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV · U.S. education rank 13

Georgetown University

C 75 usability

  • Accessibility B
  • Botability B
  • Security C
  • Usability C
  • Readability A

Most common usability failures among Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research university sites

Share of the 5 fully scanned Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV research university sites failing each check. A site can fail more than one check. Each check links to the sites failing it, or to its standard when we have no list yet.

  1. Open Graph description60%
  2. Open Graph image alt60%
  3. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)40%
  4. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)40%
  5. Open Graph image40%
View the data table
CheckShare failingSites failing
Open Graph description60%3
Open Graph image alt60%3
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)40%2
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)40%2
Open Graph image40%2

What each check means

  • Open Graph description. The page has a description for social media previews. Shared links have no description on social media.
  • Open Graph image alt. The social media preview image has alt text for screen readers. Screen readers cannot describe shared images.
  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). The page's main content loads within 2.5 seconds. Users wait too long and leave your page.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Page content stays in place as the page loads. Users click wrong buttons by mistake.
  • Open Graph image. The page has a preview image for social media cards. Shared links have no image on social media.

Every education site with one problem

Research universities in Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV by usability score

Rank Site Checks passed Grade
1 gwu.edu
George Washington University U.S. rank 2 		15 of 16 checks pass A
2 umd.edu
University of Maryland-College Park U.S. rank 9 		13 of 16 checks pass B
3 georgetown.edu
Georgetown University U.S. rank 13 		12 of 16 checks pass C
4 howard.edu
Howard University U.S. rank 17 		11 of 16 checks pass D
5 catholic.edu
The Catholic University of America U.S. rank 23 		9 of 16 checks pass F
american.edu
American University 		Not fully scanned, so not graded. We couldn't scan your site because it showed our bot a captcha or browser check instead of the page. Status 996 -
gmu.edu
George Mason University 		Not fully scanned, so not graded. We couldn't fully scan your site because it responded without any page content. Status 995 -

About this data

ScanGov scans the homepage of each college and university site on our higher education list. Scores come from the checks in the ScanGov standards. Sites were scanned between 10/28/2026 and 11/8/2026. Each site's report shows its own scan date. A site counts as fully scanned when its homepage loaded and sent us its page content. Averages, grade shares, failure rates, and ranks use fully scanned sites only. We could not fully scan 2 sites. They did not respond, blocked the scanner, or sent no page content. They appear in the table without grades, with their scan status, and are left out of every figure. Grades follow the ScanGov grade scale. Rank follows the ScanGov ranking method. The full dataset, with every county's raw results, is in the ScanGov data repository.

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