Winners of the Web Accessibility Contest 2004 in Germany

Hello,

just to look at the impact the W3C gives with its work in web
accessibility guidelines I want to bring to mind a competition which
happend last week in Germany.

The "BIENE Award" was given last Friday in the german capital Berlin
to 19 of 230 competitors for the best german accessible web sites.
"Biene" is ususally a german word for "bee", in this case it is an
acronym meaning - translated - "Accessible Internet Creates New
Insights" (AICNI? ;-)

Politicans from the german government and the city Berlin, the
finalists and many german internet experts visited the event. In some
speeches web accessibility was mentioned as a "motor for innovation"
and the BIENE award as an "important supporter for a barrier-free
internet in Germany".

There was seven categories:
* Education and science
* Culture and community
* E-Government
* Media
* E-Commerce
* Special award for easy-to-understand language
* Special award for sign language
* Special award for supporting web accessibility

The categories was classified in Bronze, Silver and Gold, just like at
the Olympics. The WCAG 1.0 has 64 guidelines. The testers of BIENE
took them and added own criteria, boosting the steps of tests to
200(!). The quality standards and tests requirements were very high,
so it happend that in two categories there was no winner for a golden
bee.

Sorry, there are no more informations in english, but I think to whom
who is interested in the finalist and to give some impressions this
URLs would fit:

Links to the winners:
http://www.einfach-fuer-alle.de/award2004/ (lower half)

The Police Department of North Rhine-Westphalia, the company of a
midwife, one of the biggest german financial bank ("Postbank"), a
small Zen Temple in Berlin, a language school, a city at Lake
Constance etc. - very different companies and persons won.

Pictures of the test users:
http://www.einfach-fuer-alle.de/award2004/bildergalerie/1/

Pictures of the winners:
http://www.einfach-fuer-alle.de/award2004/bildergalerie/4/

Regards.
Martin Stehle

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Aperto AG - In der Pianofabrik
Martin Stehle, Programmierung
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Received on Monday, 6 December 2004 11:50:15 UTC