Recently a client has expressed an interest in being nominated for the upcoming Golden Spiders awards, which is an Irish based web awards system. We’ve certainly been aware of the Golden Spiders in the past but have never been impressed by the quality of the winner’s websites.
In fact, more often than not we’ve been downright appalled by the quality of web design that goes into these websites, whether it takes the form of basic design and navigation mistakes or poor coding and appalling adherence to web standards/accessibility guidelines. Fortunately for us, Red Cardinal have already done a lot of research into the winners for the 2006 Golden Spiders awards. We’ve compressed some of the most relevant figures into a table below for your viewing pleasure.
Golden Spiders 2006 nominee analysis
| Validation Type | Percentage of Sites Passing Validation |
|---|---|
| CSS | 26% |
| HTML | 9% |
| Section 508 | 22% |
| WCAG 1.0 Priority 1 | 20% |
| WCAG 1.0 Priority 2 | 3% |
| WCAG 1.0 Priority 3 | 2% |
The above table is based on an analysis of 128 websites that were nominated for awards. The statistics do not look good, especially the fact that only 9% of the sites demonstrated valid HTML. There are so many simple tools to help you ensure that your code remains valid throughout the development process that it seems inexcusable to have such a high failure rate.
Broken from the word go!
According to the Golden Spiders website, the awards are judged by a “prestigious panel of experts” who assess each site based upon:
A diverse range of judging criteria including content, structure & navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity as well as overall user experience.
Essentially it looks as though they aren’t taking into account visually impaired users per-say, but you would think “structure & navigation” would be areas where accessibility criteria should definitely come into play. If we look at the current Golden Spiders website, they are clearly showing what they believe to be important.
Their website features navigation entirely based on images, not text. Worse still none of these images have “alt” attributes defined, making it extremely difficult for someone using a screen reader to navigate the website.
Apparently the Golden Spiders website will be launching a new design on the 3rd of September, so we will have to wait and see if they address the basic design errors of their own site, and whether the judging criteria will be improved considering the negative press previous awards received from the Irish web design community.
Money Machine
When attempting to look at these awards in an objective manner it quickly becomes clear that there is a lot of money involved.
Each category is sponsored by a company, including web design agencies based in Ireland. Some of last years judges had websites that were up for awards, same goes for sponsors.
In addition to this, if you want to be considered for an award you need to look for a nomination and purchase a seat at the awards ceremony. Essentially a pay-to-enter scheme is in place.
All of these above factors makes it very hard to take these awards seriously. However, for the general public, the Golden Spiders have managed to make quite a noticeable impression and are a well publicised event – “the Oscars of Ireland’s web world”.
Alternatives?
So, what are the alternatives? At the moment there really isn’t a lot of other competition. The Irish Webmaster Forums have published a wiki about various Irish Web Awards, which hasn’t been actively updated in quite a while, but it does show the other awards ceremonies out there.
- IIA and Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary Awards
This is an independent awards ceremony where each awards category is sponsored. There is also an awards ceremony which people can purchase tickets at €195 for IIA members or €250 for non-IIA members.1 - Irish Blog Awards
A new awards ceremony that kicked off last year. These awards are not-for-profit, with no entry fee for nominations. There is an awards ceremony which has a nominal fee, with all proceeds going to charity.2 - The Irish E-Government Awards
Awards ceremony focussed solely on government organisations that have “made a significant contribution to Ireland ‘s eGovernment services”.
Essentially it is not looking good. We feel there is a need for something different. Something more independent, something that considers web standards and accessibility.
Recently a group of web standards advocates got together and published the Web Standards Awards. These awards are finished now, with the group declaring that they feel their mission has been accomplished. They awarded 100 websites based on compliance with standards, separation of data and presentation, accessibility, quality of coding and more.
Perhaps Ireland is ripe for an awards system based on criteria similar to the Web Standards Awards, not the vague terms which are considered by the Golden Spiders. Perhaps we need awards that are based on merit, judged by experts in their field; awards that don’t have some superficial awards ceremony that looks to turn a tidy profit; awards that aren’t leant on by big corporate sponsors.
If people are interested in getting involved let me know and let’s get something going.
- Thanks to Michele for clarifying my previous misunderstanding of these awards.
- Thanks to Damien Mulley for clarifying the awards system used for the Irish Blog Awards.
11:13 pm
August 17th, 2007
FYI – The IIA Netvisionaries are NOT pay to enter. You pay for a seat at the ceremony’s gala dinner. Anyone can nominate anyone else during the initial nomination stage and it does NOT cost anyone a cent to do so.
4:23 am
August 18th, 2007
Thanks Michelle for pointing that out. I was finding it very hard to wean any information out of the Net Visionary awards site.
I have ammended the post and I hope this is now accurate.
10:11 am
August 18th, 2007
If you’re interested in setting up an impartial, quality-focused Irish Web awards, I’m sure I’d be interested! The Golden Spiders have been a particular bugbear of mine for years now.
While the IIA Awards are a fairly good alternative, I feel there is a need for a panel of impartial judges, comprised of industry-leading figures (possibly outside of Ireland), to sit at such awards.
3:43 pm
August 18th, 2007
Cool. That’s good to hear. I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past while and I must say I found the approach taken by the http://www.webstandardsawards.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Web Standards Awards to be something that appealed to me most – much more than having long lists of categories.
Something that is an ongoing process, with perhaps medals being awarded to sites that meet our approval followed by bi-monthly or annual gold awards. I might put together a wiki or some sort of common location for people to get suggestions together, and of course, have to come up with a name..
Irish Web Standards Awards is a bit of a mouthful…
I definitely think having external judges for major awards would be a good thing. I have a few people in mind who are well-recognised in the larger standards advocating community who I have been in touch with in the past that might be interested in being involved.
I would be most interested in looking at the standards of X/HTML coding on websites and the separation of data and presentation, it being the thing I have focussed on the most in the last while. Other items that would be priorities to consider would be accessibility; someone who can look at flash based sites and its accessibility ramifications would be good; UI design and usability; overall design considerations; and probably a whole lot more.
I’ll look into domains and so on and get something started during the next week.
9:53 am
August 20th, 2007
There’s already a Wiki that was launched by Michele several months ago, after the last flaming of the Spiders on Irish Webmaster Forum.
I’m not entirely taken on the idea of a ‘Web Standards Awards’ for Ireland – while I agree that standards are the way to go for most intents and purposes, I do think that any awards should take a holistic approach. As you say, a category or categories for Flash-based sites/Rich Internet Apps, a category for visual design, etc. etc, etc.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on standards compliance in order to vet websites these days and this misses the point entirely. PC bullying and brute force attacks on websites with the W3C validation tool are not how you judge a website. If a site is semantic perfection and it looks like something your dog threw up, then it’s not deserving of any awards.
Setting up something like this would be a very, VERY delicate balancing act. Not an excuse to advocate standards alone IMO.
10:25 am
August 20th, 2007
Hey Ken,
I was looking around on the Irish Web Awards wiki there and it quickly painted a picture for me that the main thing that was missing was representation for the good coding and design practice.
I couldn’t agree more with your point that standards compliance does not mean a good website by any means! I too feel it goes a lot further than standards compliance and I have seen some very poorly designed sites that meet a standard of some sort.
I would definitely see these kind of awards being judged on a series of criteria, of which standards compliance would only be a small part. I think UI design, navigability, design, innovation, accessibility and many other points should be considered.
Certainly looking through the http://www.webstandardsawards.com” rel=”nofollow”>Web Standards Awards winners demonstrates quite a high standard of design and though flash might not be the most prominent area represented, it is there.
I would see this as an opportunity to demonstrate to the Irish web design community that it is time to move on to a new level of web design in this country. The sheer number of poorly designed websites coming out of Ireland is frightening, and though “good design” is an arguable and opinionated thing, I think a well designed website will stand out, especially when you start to consider UI implementation, site navigation and ease of use.
11:43 pm
August 27th, 2007
Hmmm, talk about a massive oversight! The nomination process for the blog awards and judging criteria are in the public domain. Let me find where I must have put them on the site .. somwhere. Will get back to you. All very hippyish. Anyone can nominate any blog. Absolutely against paying to play. Only charge for the entry to the Awards is fiver at door and this all goes to charity. Blog Awards is not for profit, thus ensuring the money making aspect is controled somewhat. An offer to buy me out was made too but I declined as they wanted to run it like other Awards. Truth be told I’ve lost money on it the past two years.
Anyways, I’ve heard there is going to be another Web Awards show or something like that. One using approved standards is a very good idea.
12:34 pm
August 28th, 2007
What a joke it is. But it has been the same for years so most people have given up, including me.
11:26 pm
September 3rd, 2007
There’s no reason why you can’t run a set of awards on par with anything on the international scene by getting enough sponsors on board.
I don’t have a problem with paying for a gala dinner thing. It’s the paying to enter the thing in the first place that bothers me.
Regards
Michele
11:07 am
September 6th, 2007
@ Damien: I’ll update the post now with some additional information about the Blog awards. Sounds like quite a good system all round. Thanks for letting us know – you should definitely put an About page up on the awards.ie website.
@Michele and Media Host: I’m working away on setting something up at the moment. I’m definitely thinking of taking a very different tack to the Golden Spiders. Not for profit suits me fine as well. Gala Dinners – no thanks ;)
Although obviously paying for a gala dinner is totally acceptable – can’t feed hundreds of people for free without some serious sponsorship.
9:42 am
September 17th, 2007
Every year they call you to inform you about the gala event, and how happy they would be if you would honour them if participating, how delighted they are that we have a new site and how good it is, and…
And every year we always just almost agree to be listed… But there is always this small obstacle, in the principle of paying to be listed. Paying €1 would not be right, as much as paying €100 as they are asking (+VAT). We just never wanted to portrait ourselves as one who pays to be elected…
One way or the other, their sales staff are teh key to their sucess. That is what all of us should learn from them!
10:03 am
September 2nd, 2008
I know I’m a bit late on this, but do you know this page has two errors and one warning! Nobody is perfect :)
4:07 pm
November 24th, 2008
Hi Biggerdog,
Thanks for dropping by. Yeah, I’ve been meaning to fix that for a while. It’s a little glitch with WordPress and its abilities to display tables – TinyMCE, at least in the form used by WordPress, has a tendency to wrap tables and other items in a paragraph element, which is quite wrong!
I do know a way around it, but need to make some general updates to the site first.
Cheers,
Alex