Judging Process

Standards Compliance, Validation

Validation is done to ensure that appropriate standards are adhered to. All entries will go through a automated pre-selection process at the beginning of the judging process, and any entry that does not meet validation criteria will not go further in the judging process.

Please see the hints and tips page to ensure you have the best chance of passing the pre-selection phase. We consider a valid site to be one with NO validation ERRORS, and less than THREE validation WARNINGS in total for the pages tested.

Please note: that sites that don’t automatically pass the automated validation will be manually checked as there are a number of EXCEPTIONS that we understand are out of the control of you as a developer. We are judging your work, not your clients. Examples of such exception include:

• Sites controlled by Content Management Systems (CMS) controlled by the client; and
• Third party applications (such as JavaScript Widgets or Google Ads)
• Specification limitations based on current browser implementation short comings

If in doubt, please ask one of the Australian Web Awards Judging sub-committee for advice.

Judges Comments

For the first time this years judges will be giving brief comments on each site. These comments are aimed at improving and fosters the use of best practices within the web industry.  The comments will remain

anonymous, and NO correspondence will be entered into over these comments.  This is being done as a service to the industry. 

Questions for entrants:

• What is the purpose / objective of the website?
• How does the website generate business for the website owner? Directly or indirectly, online sales or marketing/brochure style, giving information to the target market.
• Describe the target audience or market segments of the website.
• Is there a Content Management System and does the website owner update their own content? If so, has the website owner been given guidelines for updating their own content?

General criteria

General criteria are used for all successfully validated entrants of the awards. Different Categories have the criteria weighted differently accordingly. As such, not all criteria are relevant to all categories, and may be omitted from those categories weighting.

Again, if in doubt, speak to one of the Australian Web Awards Judging sub-committee members for advice.

Fitness for Purpose

• Does the website suit its target market and deliver its message in an engaging and appropriate fashion?
• Is it relevant, fulfilling / achieving its purpose / objectives?
• How do you measure success?
• Does it meet identifiable goals?

Design

• Is the website aesthetically pleasing?
• Does it create meaningful visual interest?
• Is it visually suitable for its purpose?
• Is the colour choice appropriate for the target market?
• Is the website designed to appeal to the target market?
• Does the visual design represent the image /persona of the business or agency?
• Is the branding of the business or agency consistent?
• Does the website use consistent elements and appropriate graphics and images?
• Typography:
• Does the website make use of ‘white space’?
• Are the size and style of fonts appropriate?
• General Layout of the page and alignment use visual design techniques to appear uncluttered.

Content

• Is the content written in clear and simple terms?
• Is the amount of content on each page appropriate? This means the content not being too wordy.
• Is the language and tone of the wording natural and familiar to the website’s target market?
• Is the content informative?
• Are keywords and key phrases used in a balanced way throughout the content?
• Is there limited use of unnecessary jargon and acronyms?
• Are appropriate policies included e.g. Customer Satisfaction Guarantee, Returns, Security, Privacy, Copyright easy to understand?

Information Architecture

• Is the content structured to help target market find information easily?
• Is the content mark-up appropriately? (This is not the code but headings, paragraphs etc)
• Are headings obvious and descriptive?
• Does the website have clear, predictable navigation with uncomplicated structure?
• Are internal links managed well? Is there a site map or search facilities where appropriate?
• Are the menu groupings logical and easy to follow?

Development

• Does the website use any technologies other than HTML & CSS in the site. Technologies include databases, shopping carts, forms, payment processes, calculators, search processes, news and mailing lists.
• Do the website technologies achieve the functionality requirements?
• Are the technologies simple, logical and easy to use?
• Do the various parts of the website download in an adequate time frame?
• Do the Title and Description meta-tags have adequate keywords?
• Is the website optimised appropriately for search engines?
• Innovation
• How innovative is the system or technologies?
• Does the system or technologies use technique/s in new and exciting ways?
• Will the system or technologies have a big impact on the target audience
• Uniqueness
  • How unique is the system or technologies? This can be based on the uniqueness of the idea, User Interface or implementation
• Marketability
  • How difficult will it be to sell the system or technologies to the target audience?
• Online Security criteria for Retail category and for websites providing user registration/login facilities.
  • Certificate type – What is the level of certificate installed on the site
• Customisation
  • is the site a built from the ground up implementation?
  • is the site an out of the box implementation?
  • is the site a customisation of an existing online store environment?
• Selling Functionality
  • Is the shopping catalogue easy to browse or search?
  • Are you able to register for product updates?
• Shopping Cart Flow
  • Is it easy to add another product to the cart?
  • How easy is it to create an account for the website?
  • Is the checkout process uncomplicated and easy to use?

Functionality

• Does the website technologies function as expected?
• Does the website display consistently in various, widely-used web browsers.
• Is the website free of spelling or grammar errors, broken links, out-of-date or obviously inaccurate content?
• Does the website display in mobile or small screen devices?
• Are links to and from external sources managed well?
• Are contact details provided for customer enquiries?

Credibility and Validity

• Does the website include a Privacy Policy (where required by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) http://www.privacy.gov.au)?
• Is security of customers personal and financial information assured?
• Can customers access their information submitted to the website?
• Does the website include a Customer Service Policy or information?
• For Online Businesses are ethical issues such as goods return or refunds addressed?
• Is the website free of inappropriate content?
• Does the website include contact names, addresses and phone numbers for the business?

Accessibility

• Does the website adhere to WCAG Priority One and Priority Two?
• Is the markup valid and semantic?
• Is there a separation of content, presentation and behaviour layering, making use of Cascading Style Sheets, and unobtrusive scripting?
• Is the website viewable in different browsers and different platforms?