Award Categories

The categories for 2010 are as follows:

  1. Student
  2. Blog and Off the Shelf
  3. Virtual – for small and micro businesses without a “real” shopfront
  4. Online Retail – online transactional site (payment methods varied) B2C, C2C (with shopfront)
  5. Enterprise – for non transactional services for commercial use B2B, B2G, G2B
  6. For the People – for non transactional services focusing on the general public (non commercial) sector, typically catalogue and brochure sites
  7. Government – local, state & federal
  8. Education
  9. Media
  10. Arts & Events
  11. Not for Profit
  12. Innovation
  13. Mobile – for sites seen in mobile device
  14. Most outstanding – this will be announced at the AWA Awards Dinner with the finalists being made up of the winners of all the other categories.

Sites can be entered into more than one category, but a separate entry fee will apply for each.

From the winners of each category, a Most Outstanding winner will be selected by the Judging Panel for each of the three state groupings:

  • Group one from New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.
  • Group two from Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania.
  • Group three from Western Australia.

The National finalists will be the winners from each state grouping for each category, and then a National Most Outstanding will be selected from this final group of Australia-wide winners.

Student

The student category is for students who were enrolled in an education institution (High school, TAFE, University or training organisation) as a full time student in a web design / development, computer science, multimedia or digital media course, during the site qualification time frame. Entrants will also need to provide contact details of a lecturer or senior teacher as a referee for the site. It does not matter what type of site has been submitted as it can be from a personal site through to a virtual business or beyond. The site is to be accessible online during the judging period.

Examples:

Blog and Off the Shelf

This category is for sites where only the content is being judged.  This is mainly for bloggers in Australia who provide non-commercial, community or personal musings, commentary on social issues, the Internet or anything that takes their interest and intended for general public consumption. Blog sites generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the blog.

However sites with stock template designs and off the shelf CMS implementations are welcome in this section if the only contribution to the site you have made is the content.

The site is judged mainly on its content, and fitness for purpose, not necessarily the technology the site is using.

Examples:

Virtual

This category is specifically for businesses that only exist in the cloud with no physical presence in the real world. The business can be anything from an information site, a site providing services or just the ability to download music and digital files.

As a general rule, if the business cannot continue to provide products or service without the website, it can be considered a “virtual business”. The important criteria here is that the site matches the purpose of the business and reflects the business identity, that is fitness for purpose, design aesthetics and user experience.

Examples:

Online Retail

This category is specifically for the websites whose primary purpose is to sell products online. Not only are the criteria of fitness of purpose and user experience important, there is a set of criteria just for this category. The important new criteria for this category include type of security certificates, customisation and shopping cart flow. The key component of this category is the presence of an online transaction and selling system.

Examples:

Enterprise

If the site is primarily looking at an audience of business’s corporate or commercial enterprises then they are in the “Enterprise" category, that could be a service, information or a product.

Examples:

Selling to People

If the site is selling to the general public as individuals then this would be taken as the “Selling to People” category.  If the site is selling to both on equal value via the use of audience directional sub sites with the main site proper then it is suggested that both categories could be applied for.

Examples:

Government (Local, State and Federal)

This category is for government websites. User experience is an important criterion for evaluation of this category as is fitness of purpose.

Examples:

Education

This category is specifically for educational institutions such as schools (private and public, primary and secondary), Registered Traning Ogranisations, and Universities. The sites in this category need to support the ongoing business of education, gathering prospective students are well as support their major target audience (the students). The user experience is important for this category as well as fitness for purpose.

Examples:

Media

The Media category is for websites that produce news or are part of the media spectrum. Content, fitness for purpose and user experience are the criteria that important for judging. Professional bloggers, new media site, traditional media sites and publishers of news can enter into this category

Examples:

Arts & Events

The Arts and Events category is for websites that are focused on events or the arts or are a siet supporting the business of the an artist, regardless of the artists medium, be that music, dance,  fine arts or the fashion industry. Content, fitness for purpose and user experience are the criteria that important for judging. Conference, festivals, plays, musicians sites, authors site all fill into this category.

Examples:

Not for Profit

These websites are from either Not-for-profit organsiational structures or non-commercial sites who their web presence as a marketing and communications tool. Not-for-profit/non-commercial sites can be as varied as the Red Cross to a Theatre company to Arts Festival event organiser. User experience is an important criteria for evaluation of this category. Matching the site to the purpose and main vision of the not-for-profit/non-commercial organisation involved is also important.

Examples:

Innovation

This category is for those who like to innovate andcreatively, ingeniously push the boundaries of what the web can do. This may be something different, new or not, as long as it is not just run of the mill. This category includes online applications.

Entrants to this category will be judged on their innovative idea, technical expertise and design. This category is also judged on marketability.

Examples:

Mobile

Websites that are entered into this category will need to be view from a number of mobile devices from Nokia Symbian devices, opera mobile browsers, Android phones, Motorola, and the like, not just iPhones.

Most Outstanding

This award is given to one of the category winners. The winners will be judged against each other on the eight (8) General criteria “Raw Scores” only and will be the subject of a discussion between the Judging panel and the Judging Chairperson.

Important Dates

  • Brisbane Cocktail Party

    TBA
    Brisbane, Qld

  • Sydney Cocktail Party

    TBA
    Sydney, NSW

  • Gala Dinner

    Saturday, 6 November 2010
    Perth, WA