Kettering Borough Council's recent website redesign has the honour of being nominated for the first ever CSS World Awards.
The original Kettering website was launched in June 2005 and was, to
our knowledge, the very first local authority site to completely use
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for layout and presentation.
The redesign of www.kettering.gov.uk began in mid April of this year culminating in it going live mid May. The purpose of the redesign was to increase the use of Web Standards and help the site become even more accessible as well as breathing some freshness and vitality into the site design, which reflects the way Kettering have embraced the use of their website.
The CSS World Awards are, to quote the website, to "recognize the work done by developers that build websites using CSS. To heighten the awareness of the companies using Web Standards."
With ten different categories, Kettering is one of ten sites nominated under 'Institutions'. For each category there will be one winner and two finalists with the awarded sites being announced at the beginning of July. The awards are truly international, with nominated sites coming from the USA, Canada, Germany, Australia, Spain and the UK.
Lee Pilmore, Lead Designer at Jadu, responsible for the new design explained, "I was aware of the new CSS World Awards but completely surprised to learn Kettering had been nominated. The nominees are sites that have been submitted to CSS Mania between May 2005 and May 2006. A years worth of world class website design to choose from and one of our sites was chosen and nominated. I'm chuffed to buttons!"
The winners will not only be judged on the aesthetics of design but on quality of the code making up the site and the use of Web Standards. The five judges are all well known developers within the Web Standards community, including Andy Budd, Cameron Moll and Molly E. Holzschlag.
Kettering.gov.uk is not the only Jadu powered site to be recognised for it's design. Lichfield District Council became an Official Honouree by the 10th Annual Webby Awards in April 2006, a distinction recognising web sites exhibiting remarkable achievement.
