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Web Site Design Awards Categories – 2010 Horizon Interactive Awards Competition

WEBSITE AWARDS: Activism / non-profits
 category
The Activism / non-profits category is designed to highlight websites that are owned by non-profit agencies or are websites dedicated to social and political causes. Candidate websites and other promotions, political speech and other action groups. Message, aesthetics, user experience, constituent relations, etc will all be evaluated.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Blog
 category
The Blog category will highlight the best blogs from around the globe. Judges evaluate design, content and overall interactivity and relevance.
Business to business
Business-to-Business works are specifically targeted from one business to another. It may have many purposes including, business relationship development, inside sales, training, employee education, career development, etc. Projects will be evaluated on their clear communication of a business message and effectiveness of the solution. Often, outstanding business-to-business solutions find the most creative solution while not violating what would be considered an industry “norm”.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Consumer Information
 category
Projects in the consumer information category are usually developed and targeted to the end-user (consumer) without the “direct sale” element. While there may be outlets to purchase a product, a consumer information project will focus more on product/service education rather than a hard-sell. Projects may promote a product or service, provide additional information about a product or service or even discuss/promote a theme as it relates to a product/service, such as “Safety in the Workplace”, “Diabetes Managment”, etc.

WEBSITE AWARDS: E-commerce / shopping
 category
The E-commerce / shopping category works are intended to engage a customer in a direct sale. The project itself is usually the outlet to compete the sale but some projects may serve as a communication vehicle to initiate a sale elsewhere. Customers can be end-users or businesses. Projects will be evaluated on the effectiveness of the sales process (ease of use), technical merit, overall user interface, content development and aesthetics.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Entertainment
 category
Projects in the Entertainment category will usually relate to either the entertainment industry (movies / television / etc) or general internet amusement i.e. not a commercial message).

WEBSITE AWARDS: Education / training
 category
Projects in the Training / Education category could be a web-based traning programs targeted at buisiness users (employees, sales people) / or consumers (volunteers, personal certifications). Projects may also simply provide information on a subject with the sole purpose to eductate. Example: Instruction on CPR techniques or Diabetes Management (not affiliated with a drug maker). Projects will be evaluated on the ease of use, creativity, aesthetics, and content development.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Flash/animation based
 category
Animations, interfaces, scripting, novel uses, etc. Projects will be evaluated on the overall creative use of Flash and how it is integrated into a project as a whole. Specifically, overall aesthetics and artistic merit, complexity and/or functionality of animations/menu structures and effective integration of audio and video (if applicable) are considered. Other elements such as advanced scripting and/or Flash’s integration with dynamic content will also be evaluated.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Government agency
 category
The Government category is intended for either government agencies or persons working on behalf of government agencies. Projects can be a wide variety of solutions including but not limited to: external websites, internal websites, online tools or applications, promotions, or public relations initiatives.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Intranet – Internal Communication
 category
This category is designed for mostly corporate “In House” productions. This would include company intranets, custom applications designed to aid in employee productivity, business flow, etc., and internal company websites. Traning based applications, CDs, Websites, etc. should be entered in the education and training category.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Magazine / News
 category
This category was created specifically to showcase the best online publications, e-zines, newsletters, news only sites, and other information based sites. Even though these websites and other media may be information rich, judges will still evaluate the use of organization, flow, and user experience. They will ask questions like: “was the information easy to find?”, “did the user get lost”, etc.

WEBSITE AWARDS: School / University category
Collegiate works by university staff, graduate students or undergraduate students may be entered in this category. Generally it is intended for the university marketing collateral, promotional or advertising materials and other clubs, organizations affiliated with the college or university. This category is not intended for individual student works (student only competition is coming soon!). As the competition has found, many higher learning institutions enter the HIA and struggle to find an appropriate category for their work. This category was created with that in mind.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Self promotion / portfolio
 category
Projects in the Self Promotion / Company Identity category will establish a company’s brand, style, personality, message, etc. Often, these projects are a demonstration of a company’s design, development or technical capabilities. Others may be an extension of the company’s brand identity and serve as an additional sales, marketing, or promotional tool. Some projects may simply be a way for a business to communicate a message with a novel promotion such as an e-post card or e-newsletter.

WEBSITE AWARDS: Social community
 category:
The social community category is designed to highlight the best use of social interaction among web visitors. This can be a link to facebook, twitter, youtube, etc. and have an individual user forum or custom social network.