Resource: What's Your Problem?

Our favorite tools for diagnosing website performance, accessibility, SEO, AI discoverability, content and user experience.

After more than 15 years designing brands, websites and digital experiences, we've collected a handful of tools that have proven genuinely useful - helping us catch problems earlier, improve website performance and accessibility, strengthen search and AI discoverability, and make smarter decisions for our clients. Some can save time and money; others can reveal an issue you didn't know you had. These are the ones we keep coming back to.

Why we care.

We're a design and brand strategy agency, not a development shop. But a website that looks beautiful and performs poorly isn't a successful brand experience. Performance, accessibility, content, discoverability and technical integrity are all part of the experience we design.

Start with the problem.

Don't run every test on this page because you feel like you're supposed to. Start with the thing that's bothering you.

Your website feels slow?

Start with: Google PageSpeed Insights

Google evaluates how the page performs on mobile and desktop and points to issues that may be slowing it down.

Why it matters: Speed affects user experience, engagement and search performance. Before rebuilding anything, find out what's actually causing the drag.

You're worried about accessibility?

Start with: WAVE + WebAIM Contrast Checker

WAVE flags many accessibility errors and structural concerns directly on the page. WebAIM quickly checks whether text and background colors meet WCAG contrast requirements.

Why it matters: Accessibility determines whether people with disabilities can use your website - and for many organizations it is also a legal and compliance issue. Automated testing is a starting point, not a guarantee of compliance.

One more thing: Accessibility is much easier to manage when it is built into the design, content and development from the beginning rather than remediated after launch. Organizations can also use paid accessibility monitoring systems, but automated monitoring alone does not make a website accessible. And don't forget privacy: cookies, analytics, advertising pixels and forms may create consent or privacy obligations depending on where you operate and what you collect.

Nobody can find you?

Start with: Google Search Console

Search Console shows the queries generating impressions and clicks, whether important pages are indexed, and where Google is seeing technical issues.

Why it matters: Search visibility is difficult to improve when you're guessing. This is actual information from Google about how people are - or aren't - finding you.

Google or AI doesn't seem to understand what you do?

Start with: Google Rich Results Test + Schema.org Validator

These tools evaluate structured data - the machine-readable context that helps search engines and other systems understand your organization, services, articles, people and content.

Why it matters: Being discoverable isn't enough if the systems interpreting your website misunderstand what they're looking at. Clear content, metadata and structured data make your expertise easier to interpret accurately.

People visit but don't take action?

Start with: Microsoft Clarity

Clarity uses heatmaps, session recordings and behavioral data to show where people click, how far they scroll and where they may be getting stuck.

Why it matters: Analytics tell you what happened. Watching behavior can help explain why. Just don't redesign a website because three people did something strange - look for patterns.

Your content isn't connecting?

Start with: Grammarly or Hemingway Editor - then another human being.

Writing tools can identify grammar, readability, repetition and complexity. AI can be useful for research, exploration, synthesis and editing. Then give the work to someone who didn't write it.

Why it matters: We're not joking: nothing replaces a second set of eyes. Don't pull AI-generated copy directly into your website without refining it. Generic AI phrasing is increasingly easy to recognize, and your brand voice and communication style are as important to your identity as your logo, typography and color palette. A creative agency like Gryphon can often help you say what you mean in a way that attracts, engages and resonates with your core audience.

QUESTION  ->  EVIDENCE  ->  JUDGMENT  ->  ACTION

That's the methodology behind this toolkit. Start with the problem, use the simplest tool that can help you investigate it, and then decide what the evidence is actually telling you.

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MORE TOOLS WORTH KNOWING

These are our go-to recommendations, but teams aren't all built the same. Your platform, workflow, internal expertise and particular problem may make another tool a better fit. We keep this list intentionally edited - useful options, not every option.

Accessibility & compliance

WAVE - Visual accessibility evaluation and WCAG issue identification.

WebAIM Contrast Checker - Quick color-contrast checks against WCAG requirements.

axe DevTools - Accessibility testing that can integrate more deeply into development and QA workflows.

Website performance

Google PageSpeed Insights - Our first stop for mobile and desktop performance diagnostics.

Chrome Lighthouse - Deeper audits for performance, accessibility, SEO and web best practices.

WebPageTest - Detailed performance testing for teams that need more technical diagnostics.

Search & discoverability

Google Search Console - Queries, indexing, impressions, clicks and Google search diagnostics.

Bing Webmaster Tools - Search performance, indexing and site diagnostics across the Microsoft search ecosystem.

Google Trends - Useful for seeing how search interest and terminology change over time.

Structured data & machine understanding

Google Rich Results Test - Checks structured data for Google-supported rich results.

Schema.org Validator - Validates broader Schema.org structured data.

User behavior & experience

Microsoft Clarity - Heatmaps, recordings and behavioral data that show how visitors actually use a site.

Images & website assets

Squoosh - Resize, compress and compare image formats while monitoring visual quality.

TinyPNG - Simple image compression when you just need to reduce file size quickly.

Writing & content

Grammarly - Grammar, editing and automated review.

Hemingway Editor - Readability and sentence-density checks.

Another human being - Still one of the best communication tools available.

The tool isn't the answer.

A performance score doesn't tell you whether your website is good. An accessibility scan doesn't replace human testing. Search data doesn't tell you what your brand should stand for. AI can generate language, but it can't decide what is genuinely worth saying.

Tools give us evidence. Expertise helps us decide what to do with it.

At Gryphon, these tools sit inside a larger design and strategy process. They help us ask better questions, validate decisions and catch problems before they become expensive ones.

And because technology changes quickly, so will this list. These aren't the only good tools available or the definitive answers for every team. They're simply the resources we've found genuinely useful - and the ones we're comfortable sharing with you.

Still trying to figure out what's wrong?

Sometimes a tool gives you the answer. Sometimes it gives you twelve more questions. If you're navigating a website redesign, brand evolution, accessibility concerns, discoverability issues or simply trying to understand what could be working harder, we'd be happy to take a look with you.