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May 18, 2002

An awards scheme for websites has been gaining attention - but, as Adam Christie discovered, the Webbies say far more about the cultural ignorance and isolationism of its organizers than about effective online communication.



Another lesson in what not to do

HERE we go again. The Webby awards have been getting publicity again - even in the UK - as the BBC but themselves forward.

A quick look through the nominations and the concept of 'best practice' is reflected within seconds as being American and out-of-date. The cultural bias that underlies the nominations is as horrendously imperialist as Disney, Starbucks and an unmentionable 'burger chain'.

The list of judges may appear impressive - and wonderful networking for the organizers - but the appreciation of different cultures and circumstances around the world is 'limited'.

And, to make already potentially offensive cultural 'superiority' even worse, those who have set themselves up as having the expertise to judge and assess sites do not appear to have grasped the fundamental difference between 'useability and understandability'.

Some nominated sites defy belief. One - Ontherail.com - is largely incomprehensible. There is no indication whatsoever on the home page of what it is about. The name would imply that the content is about railways - railroads - but, no, it is about restaurants. There may be some link in 'American English', but outside the US, the title means nothing. And this is good practice? Uh? You must be kidding.

The first paragraph on the home page says: 'Just in case you missed the Chicago Food Festival, here's a re-cap, sort of …. From the perspective of a looooning day at the show'. What does this mean?

Go to the 'about us' section and, in the third paragraph, it becomes apparent that the site is for those interested in the restaurant industry and 'those who want to find a place online that speaks their language'. It doesn't speak my language. Good practice?

Check the entry criteria and the Webbies become even less credible. The collected wisdom of web publishing has advanced so far beyond the mid-1990s when Bay Area 'cyber-hippies' were prime. There may have been creativity then - but its 'freedom' came at the cost of individual's livelihood and many people's investments when 'dot-coms' crashed and reality hit.

'Gung-ho' innovative excitement had ignored the relationships between effective communication and perception that took decades for broadcasters to learn and longer than a century for the print media to understand and refine.

The rules say the sites must be 'accessible to our predominantly English-speaking judges'; that sites such as Ontherail have been shortlisted does not say much about the literacy levels of some judges.

Sites are nominated by their owners or publishers - and have to pay an entry fee (in US dollars) for the dubious privilege of consideration. That, to many, gives the "awards" the same - minimal - credibility as business directories where companies have to pay for entries. That alone invites contempt for more active consumers.

I do hope that the organizers intended their entry criteria to be funny. If they didn't, then then the Webbies really are a tragedy. In 2002, they were still talking about the "intangibles (our italics) that make one stay or leave".

Guidance produced in 2000 by the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry showed that many factors that turned users away from sites were far from intangible. The Webbies' organizers do themselves no favors by being so far behind the times.

The fundamentals advocated by the DTI puts the Webbies' 'best practice' concepts to shame. By DTI standards, none of the five 2002 Webby nominees comes anywhere near good practice, let alone best. They all look wonderful - but each contains fundamental flaws; that these have either been not recognized or overlooked further condemns the judges for not being sufficiently up-to-date with the global and pan-cultural aspects of internet communication. They may also be accused of failing to appreciate basic technical considerations facing developing nations. Each site may be wonderful for a high-speed web-savvy US literate audience, but further afield? Sorry? No way.

Google assumes that users know it is a search-engine and what one does. Amazon assumes that users know it is an online mail-order service. The use of moving images on the other three sites immediately puts them beyond those using slow connections or older browser software. I, for one, would have expected an educational publication as renowned as National Geographic not to put itself beyond such a global audience by letting technology get ahead of accessibility.

That these are the Webbies' best practice examples says SO much - about continuing American cultural imperialism. If you want to know what not to do, check the Webby links; the lessons are there - but, tragically, not how the organizers intended.

The Webby Awards