(WOW) Iron Chef
Webmaster Competition
A Designer’s Showcase for TechEd 2007
Ontario Convention Center
Ontario, California

Greetings from WOW
Greetings from the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW). We are the organization who has
partnered with The Community College Foundation, TechEd Events to host the 4th Annual WOW Iron Chef Webmaster Competition.

We are pleases to be placing a call for participation. Please find the details of the event highlighted
below.

WOW Iron Chef of Web Design Challenge
The true challenge of a professional Web designer is to be able to adequately assess the needs of
a client, and then address those needs accordingly. Which technologies might be employed to
reach that end are not the issue--whether you go with a CSS-based design, add Flash, audio, and
backend technologies as solutions means very little if the end results satisfy the needs of the
client’s audience and Web site goals.

WOW believes that today’s true Web professional can balance in skill sets, has an ability to
analyze a situation and produce a viable solution, and applies technology and design techniques
appropriately for the circumstances. The WOW Iron Chef of Web Design Challenge provides a
showcase where competing teams can prove their skills in an entertaining and upbeat
environment while carrying a message of excellence forward.

Three (3) teams will be invited to compete by developing a Web design on the show floor in the
course of one day. Their work will be judged by a panel of experts selected from the press and
Web design and development community. This is an interactive session with the Web design
industry's best programmers. The format will combine the spectacle of performance art with the
entertainment value of a live high pressure-sporting event. This is an all-day event with the
following proposed schedule:

Tuesday, March 27, 2007
This is an all-day event with the following schedule:
9:30 AM. Teams gain access to their stations
10:30 AM - 2:30 PM. Planning, design, and deployment - Teams assess the design needs and deploy the site and the competition begins!
2:45 PM - 3:45 PM. Presentation - Each team will present the main concepts of their challenge, how they approached it and why.
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM. Judgment - A panel of judges will analyze the results using agreed upon criterion and determine a winner.
4:30 PM. Winner announced!

Making Web Sites a Reality
This event gives each of the vendors an opportunity to showcase the design and development
and techniques they use for creating great Web sites. The TechEd audience is given a chance
to watch great designers and developers create sites using the same tools they use today.
This is an audience interactive event and during the course of the development phase the MC
will switch between teams and put their monitors on a large projection screen. This creates an
opportunity for the MC, panel of judges and audience members to ask questions about the
process and gain insight into the strategies used by the designers.

Challenge Overview
The Iron Chef of Web Design event will occur live during the TechEd conference, giving attendees
a first-hand look at what it really takes to make a great Web site, and fast! The competition will be a head-to-head format with each team competing against the clock and the other teams to create Web sites for non-profit organizations in need of sites (these organizations will be selected in advance by WOW judges). Monitors will display to the crowd all keystrokes made by the teams as they design, code, and deploy their Web site.

Web Site Design Teams
Participants will submit teams of 3 designers and developers who will identify the main needs of
the non-profit agency for whom they are creating the site, create a visual design for the site
including graphics and navigation, render 3-5 pages of its content in HTML (or XHTML), add any
specialty features they can adequately plan for in the time allotted, address a specific Web design
challenge pre-conceived by the judges, and be able to describe to the judges their process and
rationale for the design approach taken.

Design & Development Guidelines
To add to the element of the surprise to this high level-sporting event, each competing team will have no knowledge of the non-profit organization's Web site needs prior to the event. Each participating team will receive the following details from the non-profit or educational institutions sites selected by the WOW Iron Chef of Web Design contest selection committee.
Selected non-profits will provide each competing team:

• Overview of Organization (Official Name, Purpose/Mission Statement)

• Target Audience (Sites primary intent: sell, entertain, inform)

• Section 508 Compliance Requirements (usually required by education and those receiving federal
  funds)

• Overview of Audience (Organizations Demographics)

• Overview of Current Technology (Which Technologies currently being used on the client side

• Organizations colors (if applicable)

• Organizations official typeface (if applicable)

• Organizations server side technologies (server type, application db management/commerce
  mgmt)

• A point of contact within the organization that can either participate in the audience or be or be
  available by telephone the day of the event to answer questions for the competing Web Design
  teams

• Access to existing Website on CD-rom including additional photographs, (if desired),
  organizations logos, any additional content that the organization would like to provide the
  competing web design teams

• Each competing Web design team will consist of 3 people

• In addition to providing a general design, navigation scheme, and deployment of the site, each site will
  have one specific, identified challenge that the team must overcome

• While discussion of server-side technologies certainly should be brought into the planning of the site,
  the focus should be on the client-side needs: visual design, markup, and style

• The teams will not be allowed to use any external or 3rd party resources to assist in their design. The
  idea is for competitors to use common Web design tools and skills to achieve their goal

• The teams will utilize technologies from industry vendors. This means that any common Web
  technology may be employed to achieve the goals of the day, including, but not limited to:
    o Flash/SWF
    o Audio
    o Video
    o Other multimedia

The goal is to use these technologies in the context of the site audience and need. This means that contestants should avoid simply defaulting to a particular technology with which they are comfortable. An example of the balance we’re looking for would be the case of a non-profit agency dedicated to teaching young parents-to-be about the birth process. While the agency pages themselves might be information-rich, accessibility-aware and less-visually heavy, the addition of a Flash presentation about the birth process added to the site would be tremendously beneficial to the audience. So, finding the proper balance when using available technologies is something that the judges will be very focused on. Participating contestants will receive pertinent documentation for the non- profit.

Hardware Guidelines
Since this is a professional’s competition, and most Web professionals use a variety of hardware
platforms and software tools, participants in the contest are expected to bring their own hardware, and have a location online prepared in terms of where they will host their site entry. This allows teams to use the application formats and methods that they support. WOW and TechEd will supply Internet access (WiFi or LAN TBA).

Software Guidelines
Teams can use whatever off-the-shelf or open-source software they like to achieve their needs
with two limitations:
· The software must not be beta software
· The software must be available on the open market and not proprietary to the participant
team

Intellectual Property
The reproduction rights for all or part of the contest application source code developed by the
teams during the course of the event will become the property of the contest sponsors.

Contestants will be required to sign model release forms and any photographs, transcriptions or
video recordings made during the event will also become the property of Seybold. Participants will
be given non-commercial access and rights to these materials for the purposes of marketing and
promotion.

Contest Liability
The contest and show sponsors will have no liability for participant hardware, software licenses
fees or damages that might result from the installation use or performance of the software before, during or after the event.

Judgment Methodology
Independent Panel and Audience Vote
A panel of four experts will be selected from the press and Web design community. The audience
will also vote and be counted as a fifth panelist.

Decision Criteria

• The decision criteria are as follows:

• 25% Design Appeal Is the overall design appropriate for the needs outlined by the agency,
  and does it fulfill the design needs from an aesthetic point of view. Basic design
  components such as logo, required color schemes, or other specific needs of the client
  will be provided to the contestants along with their client overview document on the
  morning of the event.

• 25% Quality of Markup and Code How does any markup, CSS, and JavaScript created
  for the site stack up? Are the contestants following Web standards and best practices?
  Issues that the judges will be looking for include: How does the markup stand up in today’s
  contemporary browsers including IE for Windows and Macintosh (IE 5.0+), Mozilla (current
  build), and Netscape (6.0+).

• 10% Accessibility Most non-profit organizations and educational institutions in the United
  States much conform to Section 508 in terms of accessibility to their sites. Are the
  contestants adding accessibility features to their sites? This will be measured by an
  examination of the markup by judges to see if proper alt text, title text in links, and
  accessible table and form features have been added.

• 10% Web Site Optimization Are the graphics well-optimized? If any multimedia (Flash,
  audio, video) is used is it appropriate for the design needs of the site and used judiciously?
  Do pages load and render quickly? Pages greater than 85KB combined markup and
  dependencies will lose points.

• 10% Usability How usable is the site? Is navigation consistent--is it easy to find ones way
  around the site? Judges will navigate each site and review how fast it takes to find
  information and whether orientation within the site is clear at all times.

• 10% Contestant Presentation Contestants effectively communicate to the audience and the
  judges how they planned their day, managed their workflow, and met the criteria of the
  challenge.

• 10% Audience Experience Did the designers share their experience well? Were their
  explanations and presentations clear and helpful?

• Each category will be scored on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is the best score and then weighted
  using the guidelines given above.
   

Contact Information

World Organization of Webmasters Overview
As a non-profit membership supported organization, the World Organization of Webmasters
(WOW) is dedicated to keeping up with this frantic pace, providing education, support, and
guidance in all key aspects of this new frontier. Critical questions like "Who Owns Your Web
Site?", domain name controversies, and other legal issues affecting webmasters are covered in
our Members Section. Details about WOW's mission, education and certification efforts, and
membership benefits can be found in our directory.

Questions about this document may be addressed to the following individuals:
Bill Cullifer
Executive Director
World Organization of Webmasters
9580 Oak Ave Parkway 7-177
Folsom, CA 95630
(916) 608-1597 Office
(916) 987-3022 Fax
www.joinwow.org Website
bill@joinwow.org E-mail