The Website Award

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by user0

What exactly do website judges look for in a "winning website"? I've come up with a short list of points but, I don't know if they are all real/legitimate points. Feedback is appreciated.

- Current year content
- past year content
- visual appeal
- ease of access to specific elements through the website (i.e. get to any page with 3 clicks)
- media including photos, videos, and sound
- back end coding
- structure of website
- browser compatibility
- ease of maintaining the website (i.e. dynamic content? or hard coded html?)
- validation at w3? (http://validator.w3.org )?

am I missing anything?

I've found that coding practices don't really matter because I've seen websites that have terrible coding and that don't validate still win. For browser compatibility, it's safe to assume your judge will be using either Internet Explorer (hopefully not older version like IE6!!) or Firefox. Make sure your website works in at least those two.

The most important thing will be your content. Make sure it's up-to-date and fresh. Having plenty of pictures to supplement it is also helpful (makes it easier to read). Having a large media gallery is also nice as well. My site has been success in Michigan and we have a MONSTER-sized media gallery (3000+ pictures, 50+ videos). Organization and navigation is also important. Like you said, it should take no more than 3 clicks to get to important content.

Originally Posted by BandChick

Team 1089 (my team) won the website award at the NJ Regional in 2006 and 2008. If you would like, please feel free to stop by our website and compare/contrast with ours (http://www.mercury1089.com ).

Great post, it's very informative and I've got it bookmarked now.

However, that being said, I'm very suprised to see Website Evaluator promoting the use of tables in a layout (http://www.mercury1089.com and your profile website). Properly designed modern websites use tables strictly for tabular data, not the layout. CSS and div tags should be used to structure the layout because tables used for layout is a big no-no in the world of web design.

I design stock templates for ThemeForest.net and they don't even accept submissions that use tables for the layout.

[Elgin Clock]

::hint::
Anyone can sign up to be a website evaluator, so if you REALLY want to see the judging criteria from a judges standpoint, sign up to judge websites at a regional event in VIMS.
(A little inside info never hurt anyone)
It's all done remotely, and you don't even have to show up to a regional to do it.
(I judged the some of the Washington DC Regional teams' websites this year)

Also, a lot of the points are based on things that are missing, but are simple to include
(A simple link to FIRST's website on the homepage is a simple thing to have, yet many teams did not even have that )

Also, any website that is being judged this year will be given feedback to the team from the judges.
FIRST has implimented it necesarry to leave comments when you are a judge about the good or the bad, anything really.
I used mine to praise some awesome features or unique qualities, or comment on anything I saw that violated the rules.
You will get both positive & negative comments in your feedback this year!
Learn from the feedback!

[ChrisMix]

I hate that teams have to wait until after ATL to find out if they even so much as got the excellence award.

[Jimmy Nichols]

From the perspective of another Website judge. After the deadline don't take your website down. I'm judging Pittsburgh and one of the teams had a glitch and had to take their site down. Not sure what the issue was, could have been a major one. But many of judges were not able to judge their site because of this.

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

From the perspective of another Website judge. After the deadline don't take your website down. I'm judging Pittsburgh and one of the teams had a glitch and had to take their site down. Not sure what the issue was, could have been a major one. But many of judges were not able to judge their site because of this.

Team websites should be up all year in my opinion, not just for a couple months so it can win an award.

[BandChick]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Also, any website that is being judged this year will be given feedback to the team from the judges.
FIRST has implimented it necesarry to leave comments when you are a judge about the good or the bad, anything really.
I used mine to praise some awesome features or unique qualities, or comment on anything I saw that violated the rules.
You will get both positive & negative comments in your feedback this year!
Learn from the feedback!

Okay, I'm not going to lie, that's not entirely true.
YES, evaluators have to leave comments with their scores, NO you do not have to receive them. It depends on the Website Evaluator Advisor for your regional whether you get comments or not.

Even I'm guilty of that. Last year I didn't give my teams their comments, but this year I created a spreadsheet and made sure everyone who submitted got one.

My suggestion: If you want comments (and I don't know why you wouldn't, constructive criticism is the best way to improve), make sure your regional planning committee KNOWS. That way they can make sure your Web Advisor knows and does whatever he/she can do to provide them.

[KathieK]

Actually, Sara, it is not up to the Advisor to give the feedback. If a team wishes to see feedback they must request it from FIRST. Contact frcteams@usfirst.org and request feedback for your team's website.

[BandChick]

Originally Posted by RyanCesiel

However, that being said, I'm very suprised to see Website Evaluator promoting the use of tables in a layout

Agreed Ryan. I'm trying to branch out into more DIV tags with CSS, but when I learned to code it was just post-frames and into tables for HTML with some CSS. Give me some time! XD

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by BandChick

Agreed Ryan. I'm trying to branch out into more DIV tags with CSS, but when I learned to code it was just post-frames and into tables for HTML with some CSS. Give me some time! XD

Okay, sounds good. Hope I wasn't too harsh.