Over the years I have found that web awards tend to fall into three types:
What I find that you are really looking for is a web award competition that acts as a yard stick to measure your skills that is judged by your peers in the web industry, not advertising executives.
Let’s get some reality on the web accessibility debate.
We all know about WCAG 1, we have all at least had a look at the associated checklists. If you are lucky you may have glanced at WCAG 2.
We all have been developing and designing our sites with semantic content, in compliance with W3C guidelines, using progressive enhancement for the interactive components, unobtrusive Javascript, and graceful degradation of the pages for legacy browsers. Maybe used some of the attributes of ARIA. Sure that’s a no brainer.
We know that doing this will solve most of the accessibility issues.
It’s an interesting point is the ability to code in CSS, HTML and JavaScript a skill that is relevant to the User Experience practitioner. Or should that be left to the developers and designers.
Why ask? Well I’m at a crossroads.
You see the nature of the local industry here is such that there just isn’t a constant stream of User Experience work at commercially viable rates. So a I have been supplementing my UX work with a little front end design and development from time to time.
Look around the web, you’ll find them all over the place. MS-Word and PDF forms that you have to download and complete. I would be forgiven for thinking that we have not progressed on the web since 1995.
I know I’m not perfect I have been party to this crime against UX as well.
We know they are bad, so why are we still using them.
You’re feel inspired to join a professional association. The website seems pretty good, it lists all the benefits. There is a professional air about it. You can see that some of your respected peers are already members.
Gary Barber
I’m an independent User Experience Consultant.
I design interfaces, build information architectures, HTML prototypes, run workshops on UX design, do user research and conduct usability & accessibility testing and audits.
I can work within your existing team or as an external consultant on a contract or adhoc basis.
You can contact me via my company, radharc or just email me.
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