Unfortunately, as of 27-Feb-2003, the Electronic Reproductions Australia Site Award service has been temporarily suspended.

This is due to no other reason than not having enough resources to complete the huge number of requests that ERAust receives each week.

Well, it's the end of Jun-2003 and still not making
any head way on the awards list.
Service is suspended until further notice.

 

Below you will still find the criteria on which the
ERAust Site Award assessments were made. 

 

 

 

The Electronic Reproductions Australia
Site Award
This award is presented after sites have been critiqued by the staff at ERAust in the following 4 categories.
Aesthetics Browser Frames Graphics
The purpose of the award is not to just 'willy-nilly' give out links back to our site, but rather to present some acknowledgment of the time and effort that many people put into producing quality web pages. This award could be presented to professional web sites, but its primary focus is on personal, hobby and amateur web sites.

Your site does not need to score the full 12 out of 12, but will need to pass at least 5 out of 12 to receive the first award.

This award will NOT be given to sites that contain an adult-theme or sexually-explicit text, images or photographs.

 
Aesthetics, Layout and Navigation
  • Original content and presentation.
    Basically why do people keep coming back to a site?
    Firstly presentation, it is possibly the most important aspect. A site can have the same info as a thousand other sites, but if the presentation and navigation are first class, people will always come back to your site before going to others.
    Secondly Original Content. A site with good presentation and original content almost guarantees hits on the old counter.

  • Colour coordination, Text Vs Background. Background images as wall paper for web pages are a great idea. But do they enhance the page or jeopardize the readability of any text that happens to appear on the pages. Pages must be easy to read.

  • HTML errors and the use of
    Broken links and images that never turn up. Classic examples of poorly designed web pages. If Your web site is going to lose a point here then don't bother. Please fix them up, then apply.

  • E-mail address 'written' and not just a link or an image.
    Would sound like a very petty issue but many people have web based e-mail now days either through the likes of Hotmail or Yahoo, also some organizations don't link their browser and e-mail software. Many sites including large company sites, neglect to provide any e-mail address at all. An e-mail address is important for receiving feedback and fault reporting.

  • Optional loading of background sounds.
    Homepages with background sounds. There is nothing worse. On any other pages on the site and then after being given the option, well then OK. Nothing slows down a site better than a 100K wave file.

  • NO 'Under Construction'.
    It can be taken as fact that all good web sites are under going some change, this is what makes them worth revisiting. If a page is not ready for the NET for everyone to see then don't upload it. If the amount of time finding the best 'under construction' image and placing it on a web page was put into improving the actual content of the page, the whole web would be a better place for it.
    Web pages are under constant development.

top
Browser related
  • Browser compatibility
    Being there are so many different browsers and versions of those browsers around, it can be very helpful to everyone that visits your site to know what browser they should use to get the most out of your site. You would be surprised how different Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Explorer can be for starters. ERAust will view applicant sites with V4.7 of Netscape.

  • What screen size if other than 640x480.
    Many sites are being designed for 800x600 and that is fine. But at least let people know there is a very good reason why your site looks hopeless at 640x480. It should also be remembered that some Mac users could be looking at the site with a width of only 470.

    NOTE: Both of the above can easily be covered by adding something like:
    best viewed with Netscape V3, 800x600, 24bit color
    at the bottom of the home, opening or first page of the site URL. It is not necessary for every page, just the homepage. Think about it, instructions on how to open something are always on the outside, not on the inside.

top
Frames related
  • Only one(1) scroll bar
    Good frames pages only need one scroll bar, normally at the side. The bottom scroll bar can often be removed by setting table widths to 97% or less. Once the number of scroll bars gets to 3 or 4 in number, it is a good indication that the author is not completely au fait with the use of and setting up of frames.
    Two scroll bars may be allowed, but not for the same frame.
    Correctly done frames pages should leave people wondering, 'how did they do that?'.

  • Use of the <noframes> tag.
    Ever tried viewing your favorite frames page with a browser that does not support frames. It is a worth while experience. Many frames pages don't even use the <noframes> tag to inform the unsuspecting surfer why they have come to a dead end. This of course also comes down to the author's understanding of frames and if they are going to provide any support for the non-frames browsers.
    Our experience is that with some simple planning, support can easily be provided for non-frames browsers.

top
 
 
Graphics related
  • Use of thumbnails for 30K+ graphics files
    It does not take much effort to create a 6K GIF of a 50K JPEG file. If people get the feeling that you have given some thought for their slow connection, they might just happen to stick around and dare I say it, come back again.

  • Use of ALT within the <IMG> tag.
    It is not a, 'be all to end all'. It can be used in navigation and when down loading the old 50K+ JPEG file, an ALT="backofmyhead.jpg 96K" within the html <IMG> tag can be helpful.

  • Use of GIF and JPEG for the correct applications
    There are many excellent sites that are devoted to this exact subject. This is an example of what we a looking for:
    Photo images that when stored as a GIF file = 100K, but had it been stored as a JPEG file would have been around 30K.
    This also works the other way round, a graphics images as 10K JPEG file that when stored as a GIF file would have been only 3K.

  • File Optimization
    Some simple tricks for both GIF and JPEG files can cut the file size by a third. ERAust normally attempt to test up to 4 images. Image optimization should not be able to be improved by any more than 10% per image.

top

A Quality Independent Web Awards certified award program. qiwa

The ERAust Site Award is proud
to be a Member of Aussie Awards.

 

 

eraust@yahoo.com
http://www.sprint.net.au/~terbut/index.html