Procedure

As soon as a website is submitted, a jury member checks if the site complies with the conditions mentioned under Who can participate? and decides if the website can enter the competition.
After this first selection the jury will create a shortlist of the 10 best profit and the 10 best non-profit websites.
Each jury member analyzes and rates these 20 websites individually and gives them a score out of 50 based on 8 criteria.

Because the jury consists of active usability professionals, some of them may have been involved with a nominated website. Or they may have seen the contract for that site go to a competitor. One who is also part of the jury.
To keep the jurors’ personal bias to a minimum, the highest and lowest scores for each website are always disregarded.

Of course, we could also have chosen a jury that consists of people who aren’t actively involved in making websites better. But that didn’t seem like a good idea.
Jury awards
- During the jury deliberation night at the end of October, the 3 highest scoring sites of each category (profit and non-profit or e-gov) are discussed and the winners of the jury prizes are chosen.
Public vote award
- The 10 sites with the highest jury scores will be presented to the public
- The public can vote for the best website from October 17^th until November 4^th 2011
- The site with the most votes is the winner

The winners will be announced on November 9^th 2011.
For each award we will publicly announce the top 3.
Participating websites will not receive their ranking or a report from the jury. Please don’t ask.

The jury is not opposed to gifts such as wine, cigars (Dominican with a dark wrapper), diamonds or other valuables.
But please be aware that this won’t influence the jury’s judgement.

Usability Awards