Invitation to submit style tiles for new WAI website

Dear Elle,

I mentioned to you a few months ago that we were undertaking the redesign
project for  the WAI website.  Below is the letter we are distributing to
designers we have identified who understand accessible design principles.
of course I thought of you and Derek and the team and hope you will
consider submitting ideas and working with us.  Boiler plate follows -
thanks a million!

---
The Education and Outreach Working Group of the W3C's Web Accessibility
Initiative is delighted to announce that we have begun work on a
long-awaited redesign of our website, w3.org/WAIhttp://w3.org/WAI.

One of the crucial early steps is to identify design resources and we are
reaching out to you as a noted designer and artist. We invite you to submit
one or more possible style tiles for the team to review with the
possibility of overseeing general design direction. Please submit your
ideas to Sharron Rush (srush@knowbility.org) who is leading the search
committee under the guidance of web site redesign project co-leads, James
Green and AnnaBelle Leiserson.

We are asking that style tiles be submitted by 5 pm US Eastern time on Monday
September 5. We plan to anonymize submissions, so if possible please don't
share your work with members of our team.

*Background Information on the Redesign*

First and foremost, our primary goal, is to:
Create the WAI site as the #1 Go-To place for Web accessibility

This goal serves as our beacon. What it means to us is about the public
perception of the site — that it is seen not just as authoritative, but
also as the most reliable place for Web accessibility information and that
it's a role model. It's not about having the most traffic.

Our short-term goal is to launch the initial iteration in the first quarter
of 2017, with a modern, attractive (to our primary audiences) look-and-feel
that reflects leadership in the Web community and builds credibility.

We've identified three primary audiences:

   1. Doers (includes developers, designers,content creators, web
   administrators, etc.)
   2. Planners
   3. Advocates

If you would like more information on these audiences, see our "Personas":
https://w3c.github.io/wai-website-personas/

The following three pairs of adjectives capture our hopes for the visual
design:

   1. Engaging/empowering
   2. Reliable/credible
   3. Practical/clear

Style tiles are to be based on the classic format from http://styletil.es/.
The only two requirements for the style tiles are that they include a
version of the W3C logo and adhere to WCAG 2.0 AA for things like contrast
and legible text.

There is a lot of other information about the redesign, but our guess is
the above is more than enough for style tiles. That said, if you have
questions, we welcome them. Please send them to Sharron.


*General consideration and usage of your work *This redesign is developed
by the WAI Site Task Force, a task force of the Education and Outreach
Working Group within the Web Accessibility Initiative in W3C. Other than
the W3C team contacts, all participants are volunteers and while we wish we
could pay for your very valuable work, alas we have no budget. You are
certainly welcome, however, to note in your resume and on places like
LinkedIn, that you were selected by us, the W3C WAI Redesign Task Force, as
a top accessibility designer. And if your work is selected, of course you
can say that too. We will recognize your work in PR about the new site and
in the acknowledgements for the redesign.

That said, once you send it to us, it will be ours to use according to
the Patent
Policy <http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/> defined by
the W3C.  We ask that you not use any style tiles you send to us for other
projects unless you are told that we won't be using them. If we chose one
of your style tiles, we ask you to not use the same elements presented
there in future work. Of course we’re happy if you are using the style tile
as a portfolio piece.

Also, if it's alright with you, we will probably approach you again once we
have the information architecture and are ready to move on to full-fledged
comps and prototypes. Be aware that our sprint cycle looks as though there
will be ongoing work during traditional year-end holidays.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions or concerns
and of course, feel free to send along to awesome designers who may be
interested.

Thank you for considering our request,
Sharron Rush

on behalf of
James Green and Anna Belle Leiserson
Task Force co-leads

and the following Task Force members:
Brent Bakken
Eric Eggert
Shawn Henry
Susan Hewitt
Laura Keen
Caleb Watson


-- 
Sharron Rush | Executive Director | Knowbility.org | @knowbility
*Equal access to technology for people with disabilities*