Golden Web Awards for Web Design

From LoveToKnow Web-Design

Imagine a web designer's excitement upon hearing that their site received one of the Golden Web Awards for Web Design! Upon being informed that the International Association of Webmasters and Designers bestowed the honor on their site, they might rush to publish the shiny graphical badge and link to the IAWMD on their own website.

Criteria for the Golden Web Awards for Web Design

Anyone can submit their site to be judged as worthy of a Golden Web Award. For this award, websites are graded on the following criteria:

Content – What is the message the website is trying to convey? Is it accomplishing this with enough information that is updated and kept current?
Design – There are several elements to the design of a site. Is the font and layout easy to read? Is it easy to navigate to various sections of the site? Are the images optimized for both the screen size and easy downloading regardless of visitor bandwidth speed?
Originality - The last test, and perhaps most difficult one to pass, is whether a site really offers something new and different to the world wide web. Did the designer let his or her personality infuse the site with something that is as individual and unique as they are?

Rated on a scale of one to ten, the site is judged by up to three members of the IAWMD on a voluntary basis. These scores are then averaged, with a minimum score of 24 required to qualify.

What is the IAWMD?

The International Association of Webmasters and Designers is an organization designed "to promote trust and confidence on the Internet through voluntary self-regulation, administration, and interaction." In the egalitarian world of the web, that sounds like an excellent way to run a group as individualistic as web designers are.

Membership is free, and currently appears to be at several hundred thousand world wide. The founder, Alexis Carter, started the group and quickly began developing the Golden Web Awards for Web Design (as well as the Diamond Web Awards, which are voted on by the general public). Quite a few web designers were thrilled upon learning that their sites had "passed" the awards process, and they quickly published the coveted golden icon.

Tarnished Gold

However, going to the Golden Web Awards website itself raises a few questions. While the website is fairly clear regarding requirements, a great deal of it seems dedicated to third party advertising. And the content on the site is repeated several times over on various pages.

Site Overrun With Ads and Judging Criteria Lacking

While there are occasional links to the sponsoring organization, the IAWMD, there doesn't seem to be a very easy way to find out anything more than the most basic background information. In the lists of "featured" and "award winning" websites, there is no real indication as to to why the design of the sites is deserving of an award – instead, a company summary is listed as if from a press release. In short, while it is easy to use, the Golden Web Awards site itself fails rather spectacularly in the field of content or originality. Every page seems to have more and more ads, leading one to suspect that perhaps it is less designed as a showcase and more an ad-revenue generating site.

Background Research on the IAWMD

These suspicions are confirmed by a little research into past winners and their own experiences. Many designers tell about how any website, no matter the design, can get a Golden Web Award. Even the "Diamond" award was usually easy to achieve by having friends voting multiple times on the IAWMD site. Some designers, such as the owner of John's Rose Garden, even include it in their list of awards as a warning, telling readers "don't expect to be treated seriously as a web designer if you put it on your resume."

Final Words

In the end, it looks like the Golden Web Award is at best a way to earn easy attention and links from novice web designers, and at worst a scam to make money by selling cheap certificates and plaques to the gullible.

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