Archived Web Design Contests

Introduction | Ideas | Tools | Sample Contests | EOWG Home

Introduction

The goal of this page is to help people who are planning to organize a contest where Web pages are evaluated and one criteria is the accessibility of the pages. Interesting information is for example:

• evaluation criteria used
• how the WCAG were used as part of the criteria
• who was doing the evaluation
• was there user evaluation included
• who nominated the pages - how to prevent too few or too many participants
• good ways for preliminary filtering of the sites
• how to give benefit to sites with more multimedia i.e. sites that are more difficult to make accessible

The rest of the page will contain discussions of some good ideas, possible tools that can be used, for instance, to help the evaluation or for preliminary filtering of the pages. Last, there is a list of sample contests and a brief explanation of how they were implemented.

Ideas

Here are some ideas that may help the organizing and the evaluating of a Accessibility Contest.

1. Provide evaluation sheet when submitting a page

When a Web page or site is submitted to the contest we could have a Web form that also gathers the accessibility information seen from the submitter's point of view. We will need space for free form comments and questionmark when something is not clear. (This info might even be a part to the evaluation criteria if it is the page designer who submits the page.) Submittable Web form for WCAG checklist is needed as a tool.

Tools

All the tools evaluating accessibility may help. Most interesting issue here is how to use them to help the evaluation or preliminary filtering of pages. Also tool ideas for contest use are needed.

1. Web form for WCAG checklist

We could have a Web form or a toolkit for creating a Web form for the WCAG checklist so that it is easy to submit an evaluation of a page. This will most probably be needed for the Gallery anyway.

2. List of tools

Bobby, html validator, lynx, HTR, pwWebSpeak, 

Sample Contests with Accessibility Criteria

AIR-Austin, Texas (Jim Allan)

AIR is an annual event in which members of the high tech community compete to build accessible web sites for local nonprofit organizations. This year (1999), more than 175 people on 22 teams participated in AIR-Austin, the annual web competition sponsored by IBM, Powershift Group, Infotec, Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich, and Applied Materials. AIR-Austin pairs non-profit organizations with web design houses to work collaboratively develop new or redesign existing sites in a friendly competitive contest. Points are awarded for accessibility (52%), functionality, appropriateness, and aesthetics. Awards are publicly presented at the annual ChariTech convention.

Link explaining how evaluation was done.

Det Gyldne @, Denmark (Frans Storr-Hansen)

The award is related to a conference on accessible web-design held on November 10. 1999 in Copenhagen. During February 2000 a working group of experts and users are evaluating the accessibility of the websites of 100 big danish corporations. The corporations are divided into 10 different categories.

The basis for the examination is the guidelines on accessible Web Content from the W3C "Web Accessibility Initiative". In addition, the websites are rated on a 1-5 scale by blind and low vision users. The practical testing is being done using the screenreader (JAWS) and speech-synthesis on one hand and a screen-magnification program (ZOOMTEXT) on the other.

List of Design Contests

AIR-Austin Texas (Jim Allan)

Det Gyldne @, Denmark (Frans Storr-Hansen)

Eppy Awards, best newspaper online awards (Rob)

GII Awards (Kathleen)

Masters of The Web Contest (Caryn Saitz)

Math Web Site Design Contest, criteria (Rob)

Megasite, criteria (Kathleen)

Sidar Awards, Spain (Charles may have a link)

SXSW2000 (Jonathan)

The Webby Awards, criteria (Rob)

Web Awards for Web Marketing Association (Rob)

Website Accessibility Contest (Jim)

World Best Websites, criteria (Kathleen)

Accessibility Internet Rally - Dallas - Fort Worth (Jim Allan)

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