Winners for the Third Annual Web Accessibility
Contest announced!

The Mid-Atlantic Consortium on Accessible Electronic and Information Technology in Education has announced the winners of its third annual Web Accessibility contest. Quince Orchard High School is the overall winner and first place for the high school entries, while Flower Valley Elementary took the first position for the elementary school entries.

This contest, open to all public and private schools grades kindergarten - 12 in Delaware, Washington, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, is an opportunity for students to learn about and implement accessible web design. Web accessibility means design that allows information on a Web site to be "read" by all people, including individuals with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities, such as people who are deaf, blind or who have mobility impairments, may need to use special technologies for access. Web sites need to be designed in a way that can accommodate these technologies.

According to Amy Goldman, Associate Director of the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University and Coordinator of the Consortium, "If web sites are not designed properly, even people with common problems like far-sightedness or color-blindness, may find them hard to see and use." Some of these design considerations include using the ‘alt’ attribute to describe the function of each visual graphic (images and animations). Likewise, provision of captioning and transcripts of audio files and descriptions of video for all Multimedia present can be helpful in making websites more usable by all “visitors”. The use of Cascading Style Sheets or ‘CSS’ for layout and style can help aspiring webmasters create a more accessible site.

Eight schools from the Mid-Atlantic region participated in this year's contest. Sites were evaluated on the basis of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Priority 1 Checkpoints and the web standards of a federal law known as Section 508. For each submission, the home page and three links were judged. In their submission, contestants reported what they had learned about web accessibility and the importance of designing web sites for all.

Jason Leveille from Quince Orchard High School reported  “Minor changes to a web site can make a huge impact for people with disabilities. There are a wide range of disabilities which we should account for...They have every right to have access to our content as someone without a disability. Moreover, the process of giving our best to create accessible web pages for our school community has forced us to look at a page as more than just a bunch of text, images, scripts, and "cool" stuff.  If consideration isn't given to those using our pages, then we as designers are essentially making a set of pages that may look perfect to us, but may not work well at all for others.  That is a very narrow view of what a web page is supposed to do.”  

Vanessa Walker from Ansted Elementary School in West Virginia noted that “Accessibility is something important that we all need to be aware of.”

“I have always thought of our school's site as targeted towards students, parents, and teachers at our school. However, I must keep in mind that many outside our school may view our site.  I will not be familiar with all of the disabilities people have, who view our site. Entering this contest also makes me think of the deaf population at our school.  I need to keep in mind that our site should be visually easy to follow and I should use closed captions if I include videos or sound in some way” said Stacey Hurney from Flower Valley Elementary.

The team from Mount de Chantal Visitation in West Virginia stated “Not all visitors to our Webpages experience the web site the same way.  Web sites need to be developed in such a way to ensure that everyone can access the information...Developing a web site that is more accessible for people with disabilities can make your website more effective for everyone (faster to load, better organized, easier to update, more focus on the info that is important)”.

Matt Goetz from Springfield Township High school in Pennsylvania shared some of his experiences participating in the Web Contest: “This activity has made me realize the many difficulties, but also the many freedoms of people with disabilities. Technology has brought many new opportunities for those with disabilities, and accessibility is essential in this area. I have taken into consideration many aspects of website-making, such as use of alt tags, alternate navigation links, color schemes, and more”.

Congratulations to all those who participated in the contest. The consortium members will get in touch with all the participants to give them a detailed feedback on the evaluation of their entries.

For more information on web accessibility, visit Web Accessibility Resources.
For more information on this contest, please contact your State Consortium partner.
To review the K-12 Accessibility checklist, go to the AccessIT site at Washington University.