Contests [was: RE: Accessible sites]

Laurence, Alan, 

I've added it to our agenda for tomorrow's EOWG meeting. 

I had some of the same reaction as Laurence, but noted that all the winning
sites in the contest seemed to be university-based, and so aren't
necessarily going to reflect leading edge electronic commerce design.

My general reaction is that these kinds of contests really help awareness.
I don't think that they're supposed to be a substitute for the "gallery"
that we've been talking about <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/Gallery>; 
and over time, there should be more & more choices of Double-A WCAG
compliant Web sites from which any contest can select winning designs, and
also more & more choices of tools & approaches with which to
comprehensively evaluate sites. But in the meantime -- nice to see people
including accessibility as in contests.

By the way, I get an error message at the "extraordinary design" award site
-- "Could not find the application specified in the URL", using Opera 3.61.
Anyone else get similar result?

- Judy

At 11:59 AM 6/28/00 -0400, Laurence Bergman wrote:
>I am a bit concerned by these results.  I find that several of them are not
>fully accessible according to WAI guidelines, and the majority of these
>designs would not be considered acceptable in any commercial environment,
>which I was hoping the contest would encourage.
>
>Laurence Bergman
>Director of Product Development
>We Media, Inc.
>www.wemedia.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: w3c-wai-eo-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-eo-request@w3.org]On
>Behalf Of Alan Cantor
>Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 12:16 PM
>To: Education and Outreach Working Group
>Subject: Accessible sites
>
>
>Hello EOWG,
>
>This just arrived in.
>
>Alan
>
>To: EASI@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
>
>The information is copied from the winners web page which is linked to
>EASI's web home page http://www.rit.edu/~easi
>
>Web Design 2000 Contest Entrants
>
>
>EASI's Web Contest Awards
>EASI is proud to announce the results of its contest for universal web
>design. Web Sites were evaluated both on their general attractiveness and
>HTML design as well as their accessibility for people with Disabilities.
>EASI bears full responsibility for its decisions. While EASI strove to
>conform to the WAI guidelines, in many cases, decisions and comparisons
>become subjective.
>We have ranked the winners in four categories: Extraordinary, Exceptional,
>Honorable Mention and Fully Accessible.
>
>We thank our winners for setting an example for other web designers to
>follow.
>
>Extraordinary Web Design Award
>The University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Technology and Learning
>URL: http://dev2.ital.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/tx2k
>
>Note: You must click on the "Guest" button to get to the homepage to be
>judged.
>
>Exceptional Web Design Award
>Maricopa Community Colleges
>URL: http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/
>Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, New Media Centers
>URL: http://newmedia.doit.wisc.edu/
>
>Arizona State University
>URL: http://www.asu.edu/
>
>TECHniques Center-Texas Tech. University
>URL: http://www.ttu.edu/techniques
>
>University of Florida
>URL: http://disted.ifas.ufl.edu/
>
>SUNY Empire State College
>URL: http://www.esc.edu/library/ibol/default.html
>
>SUNY Empire State College
>URL: http://www.esc.edu/
>
>Texas A & M Univ, Cognition & Instructional Technologies Laboratories
>URL: http://citl.tamu.edu/
>
>Montgomery Community College
>URL: http://www.mc.cc.md.us/Departments/dispsvc
>
>Honorable Mention
>University of Maryland University College
>URL: http://www.umuc.edu/virtualteaching/
>
>Bergen Community College
>URL: http://www.bergen.cc.nj.us/owl
>
>Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, College of Education, Department of Special
>Education
>URL: http://www.hawaii.edu/sped
>
>Cabrillo College Library
>URL: http://libwww.cabrillo.cc.ca.us/
>
>University of Minnesota
>URL: http://www.agricola.umn.edu/writingintensive/
>
>University of New Mexico
>URL: http://star.nm.org/deafblind
>
>SUNY Empire State College
>URL: http://www.deed2000.org/deed2000
>
>
>Fully Accessible Design Award
>Middle Tennessee State University
>URL: http://www.mtsu.edu/~itres/help/Accessibility/index.html
>
>
>Norman Coombs, Ph.D.
>Chair of EASI
>
>
>
-- 
Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA

Received on Thursday, 29 June 2000 15:44:50 UTC