What makes an award winner?

This is a question I ask myself on occasions.

And you know, it’s not because I’m bitter, or that I really don’t know, it’s more that I just don’t understand the judging process sometimes.

I know this has been debated on this blog before, and I’m probably going to generate a string of negative comments, but I think it’s worth it just to stimulate a discussion on this subject.

Take the recent NORA awards.

MidlandsIn this were at least five websites – The Royal Navy, West Midlands Police, Tesco, S3 Group and the National Health Service. The one for me that stood out here would be the Royal Navy site – a site rich with information, interactivity and just ‘stuff’ that absolutely held your interest. No doubt, a no-expense-spared exercise, but one that truly engages the visitor – be they either that casual browser, or an active job seeker.

Interestingly, the winner was The West Midlands Police force site – a relatively simple, and quite disarming site that seems quite happy to poke a little fun at itself. It doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously (Plodcasts, for example), and that’s a refreshing change.

But, was it a winner in this company? Possibly not, in my opinion. But then again, who cares about my opinion… Not many of you I suspect.

The thing is, what I’d like to see here alongside this winner is ‘why’ the judging panel chose this particular site? What was it that stood out?

For me, what stands out (unfortunately) are the in-page scroll bars – both vertical and horizontal – that are a big usability no no?  Then there is the top nav that actually, when you click on it, doesn’t always (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t) take you to an actual page of content, but just brings up a sub-navigation – a fact that took me a little while to realise.

Perhaps it was the fact that it appeared to contain several ‘buzz-word’ features that, when you look into them, aren’t really what they say they are.

You know, there is a lot that’s not bad with this site, but I just don’t get it. How can it be the winner?

For me, an award winner should be a site that shows a cohesive, consistent user experience, engaging the visitor, prompting them if their action is going to result in something unusual occurring (the audio file that opens in a pop up when you click on ‘Police Officers’, for example), adds value to the visitor experience, and presents the recruiting organisation in a way that completely engages the user.

WMP goes some way towards this, but I just don’t think it was the best in this field.  Sorry.

It’s happening again, I’m coming across all negative, and I’m sorry about that. I'm not always negative, I just want to understand why someone has been given an award - that's all. The WMP have certainly given it a go, and all credit to them - they have created something quite fun, quite disarming, and pretty personal, but I just don’t know if it is the best of the ones that were involved in the shortlist.

Comments

[John Whitehurst]

I find most of the awards a waste of time ... sitting through an event earlier this year i noted with a number of other people the amount of campaigns that were winning but had actually failed to reach their original objectives.

The problem is - you can say what you want to say on the entry and it is not really checked.

In this case - who was on the judging panel? how was it looked at?

the navy site is amazing and their whole campaign is probably the best integrated online recruitment campaign of the last year.

the only way i can see WMP winning is if the judges took account of the different scale of budgets between the two accounts.

that still does not make it the best site - i never thought i would say this in my life - the navy rocks at the mo.

[Louise Triance]

Ben

I've suggested to Stephen O'Donnell at alljobsuk.com that, as the organiser of the awards, he might want to comment on your post.

However, I thought I'd answer John's questions about the judges. They are listed here http://www.alljobsuk.com/awards/awards2007/Norajudges.shtml

As one of them (for six years now) I have long wondered if we ought to be giving "supporting evidence". In fact we have a judges "meeting" later this week and that topic will no doubt be on the agenda.

Finally, and I'm not sure if I'm really meant to say this, I agree with you both that the Royal Navy was the better site (I even mentioned it in my blog post about the awards: http://ukrecruiter.typepad.com/uk_recruiter_blog/2007/10/national-online.html).

Kind regards
Louise

[Ben]

Hi Louise - thanks for that - I agree.

I didn't want to pick on the site in particular - there always has to be a winner, and usually a fair debate has taken place, but I just believe that we should definitely be able to understand why a site has been selected.

These awards are quite visible, and so it makes sense to explain why a particular site was chosen.

I'd also be interested in Stephen's comments - I'm sure there were very good reasons why that particular site was chosen, but in the interest of educating and growing market understanding and appreciation, supporting comments would go a long way.

I look forward to hearing more about the judging process for these awards,a s i think it will definitely add value.

Cheers Louise

[Alex]

In this still evolving field it’s a crying shame, but the fact of the matter is that so many people look to those who offer themselves as “leading lights” to point the way in matters such as best web practice. And it’s for that reason that I get so uptight when sloppy work (my personal opinion) is held up as best in class.

Ben was very nice in his evaluation of the West Midlands Police site – I’m really not a big fan for reasons already stated and many more he was too polite to draw extra attention to. It’s not all that terrible, and certainly out of those listed as finalists I think a good 2nd for what they tried to do, but it’s not the best site of 2007 by a long long shot (or, for that matter, can the pfj site surely be considered a better site than the McCarthy one?).

Now there’s no monopoly on the ability to evaluate leading web site design or web build best practice – but web site evaluation simply is NOT a purely subjective thing. There are fundamental elements that have to be right – or at least hold together well – for something to be even considered award worthy. Many of us spend a lot of time and energy learning lessons from our peers and betters in this and other sectors about usability and engagement of users within the digital medium. And I’m sorry to say, but I can see nothing in the NORAs judging committee’s collective decision making that indicates an appreciation of some of these key fundamental elements.

And please save your breath trying to hold me up as some kind of sore loser. Anyone who knows me at all knows I’m not – this is plain and simply based on the fact that the Royal Navy site is a far far better site than the Police site.

I’m just at a loss – the NORAs judging criteria says nothing about budget consideration (as John mentions) – so how else can you mark it down? It, quite simply, kicks the police’s butt. So let’s look at the judging criteria in full:

1. Ease of use, design, layout & speed.
Fair enough – although all of this as a single measure?? Surely this is really the nub of what makes a leading website? And what about elements such as appropriateness to the target audience?

2. Volume of available vacancies.
How is this a grown up metric to evaluate a site against?! What about graduate sites that would only have one programme to apply to? What about an organisation that doesn’t have hundreds of vacancies – does that make their site rubbish? I mean by all means evaluate the Job search delivery mechanism – god knows there’s plenty of rubbish out there – but “volume of available vacancies”? c’mon!

3. Volume of claimed visitors.
I have my own reasons to suspect that this information might not have actually been sourced – but again, what has this got to do with the best website of 2007?

4. Available facilities for jobseekers.
Are you talking interactive bells and whistles? OK – again – what about appropriateness? What about how engaging they are? How well delivered? Let’s hope that you didn’t give any points for the chat room facility on the police site that was clearly never enabled.

5. Prominence in targeted market.
How the hell are you judging this? Just too woolly a metric for an award judging.

Perhaps you can indeed ask your co-judges for some kind of response Louise – but for a collective that claims to have “established the authority and credibility to preside over these awards” I think there’s a big question over that credibility without some real insight into the how you can possibly justify that decision making process.

I await with baited breath.

[Stephen O'Donnell]

Hi guys.

I've read your comments above with interest, and agree with much of what you have said. As founder of the awards, I wanted to set out a transparent process which would recognise the achievement in online recruitment from a candidate's perspective.

As chair of the judging panel, I can't give my personal scores in all categories, except to say that I am a big fan of both the Royal Navy site, and in particular the McCarthy site. McCarthy came a very close second, and as such, I felt merited a special mention amongst this year's winners.

I really want the awards to have credibility, particularly as they are awarded from a candidate's perspective. The judging process is deliberately unscientific, but I take your point that we could be more focused on what precisely we are judging.

I am very open to suggestions on how to improve the NORA's, and will certainly implement any measure that will add to their integrity.

Please feel free to email me direct on stephen@alljobsuk.com

[Ben]

Hi Stephen - thanks for coming back to us on this, and nice to hear the intent with which the awards were created.

Absolutely happy to have some input on what might help to add a little value to the process - if that's alright with you.

Maybe nearer the time that you are looking to run the next set of awards, we can have a bit of a catch up.

In no way do I want to prescribe what is right or wrong, but would absolutely be keen to help develop the quality of insight people can get as to why a winner is a winner!

My email address is ben.nunn@thirtythree.co.uk and let's catch up nearer the time perhaps.

Cheers