CPSnet Web Awards Program, awards for sites skies above.

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2005-07-08, Awarded "Best Award Graphic" by AFA
We are proud to announce that the HITSASeal was selected as the "Best Award Graphic" by AFA, for the month of July of 2005. To all EUTODA' staff our sincere thanks for this honour! More info about this award is available at our "Honors Granted" section.
2005-06-22, Listed #2 among 31,000 web sites at Silktide SiteScore
With a rating of 9.5 (in 10 possible), the CPSnet Web Awards attained the second position at SiteScore's TOP 750, the best 750 from about 31,000 web sites tested until this date. Silktide SiteScore is a free tool which rates how well designed, popular and accessible a website is. The entire testing process is handled by advanced computer software. SiteScore also gathers user feedback on all the websites rated, to help judge how appealing a design is. SiteScore rates all websites on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest). Scores are broken down into 5 categories: Marketing, Design, Accessibility, Experience and User Feedback.
2005-06-07, listed at "Design Snack"
Design Snack is a database of websites rated based on the quality of their design and presentation. Its unique rating scale uses "cookies" and a site can get anywhere from 0-3 cookies, 3 being the highest. The CPSnet Web Awards were rated with "One Cookie" and listed under the "Award Sites" section of the portal.
2005-05-15, rated 6 by EUTODA
We are proud to announce that our program is now one of the few Web awards programs to achieve the prestigious level 6 at EUTODA, the Academy of Fine Awards. To all EUTODA' staff our sincere thanks for this honour!
2005-02-02, recognized as a 5+ Elite Award by Award Sites!
As it states at Award Sites!, "In recognition of owner, Carlos Simões, for his efforts going well beyond his award program in 'bettering the net through excellence!'". Needless to say that we at the CPSnet Web Awards are honoured by this outstanding distinction. Thank You AS! and thank you all the awardmasters and applicants that helped building this program!
2005-01-16, selected the Site Of The Year 2004!
It is that time of the year again, when we at the CPSnet Web Awards select the best site of the previous year. And this time, our panel of invited judges and our permanent review team have selected Tim's Spider Corner as the Best Site Of The Year 2004! Congratulations Tim Beylemans, for your outstanding website! Tim's Spider Corner is an educational site for all spider fans that addresses the conservation of nature. You will find bird eating spider information, as well as an assortment of pictures, handling tips, resource links, a spider knowledge quiz, and the complete anatomy of a bird eating spider.
2005-01-09, awarded the "Humanity Award 2005" by the The Rose Awards:
"We are very proud for being granted this distinction that it is given out to... Webmasters/webmistresses who give back of themselves to the worldwide Net community, offering their talents, their skills, their web sites, as resource points for other people who are interested in bettering themselves and their own sites ... These special people are a great asset to the World Community because they offer their advice and expertise to all who seek it, and everyday, they are making the Internet a better place to be!...". More info about this award is available at our "Honors Granted" section.
2004-10-20, listed at W3 Compliant Sites
Carlos Simoes is now a "W3 Compliant Sites Member". W3 Compliant Sites is a collection of web sites that were created by designers that conform with the W3C standards. This forum provides the opportunity for them to display their work and ideas in a community that shares common interests.
2004-10-13, listed at net-guide.co.uk
The CPSnet Web Awards are now listed at net-guide.co.uk with an accessibility rating of "excellent". This directory aims to promote accessible sites and gives an accessibility rating for the websites returned for any query entered. Similarly, the directory entries also carry an accessibility rating.
2004-06-07, rated 5 by WebsAwards
A special panel of external judges, convened to assess the programs owned by WebsAwards' Staff members, has rated the CPSnet Web Awards as a WebsAwards level 5 program.
2004-05-04, rated 3 by Awardia
The Awardia Index has rated the CPSnet Web Awards as a level 3 (in 4 possible, where the fourth level is designated "Corona").
2004-04-01, rated 4 by EAI:
The Euro Award Index reinstated this award program at "Level 4" (in 5 possible).
2004-03-23, joined WSG:
We have joined the Web Standards Group (WSG). The Web Standards Group is for web developers/designers who are interested in web standards, CSS and (X)HTML and related topics.
2004-03-15, web site redesigned:
The CPSnet Web Awards have now a brand new website, fully compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict, "made with CSS" and WCAG-WAI Level AAA. Thank you to Webmates, of which we are proud members, for all the help and for the inspiration!
2004-01-15, announced the Best Site of Year 2003:
Announced back in 15/January 2004: "Explore Mars Now". In this outstanding website, visitors can walk through a Mars habitat simulation learning about science and technology as they explore. There are over 100 photo-realistic 3-D images of a near term Mars Habitat concept that are "brought to life" in Macromedia Flash.
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Overview

"The power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect" - Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director

Thousands of blind, partially sighted and physically impaired people in the World are now using the Internet to find information and use services that were previously unavailable to them, such as online shopping, banking, news etc from the comfort of their own home.

An ordinary computer can be equipped with synthesized speech output or braille display technology to enable people to use the Internet either through sound or by touch. This new technology has the potential to revolutionize the lives of visually impaired people, who until now have been forced to rely on other people for information.

This technology relies on good website development practices, and will only work properly if websites adhere to certain standards. Physically impaired people find many websites unusable because the sites falls below an acceptable standard, such as those defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The W3C is an international industry consortium that develops many of the standard languages used by Web page designers and Web application programmers. Founded in 1994, the W3C is jointly hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science in the United States; the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique in Europe; and the Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus in Japan. In partnership with industry, the W3C is currently working to establish standards that will enable Web developers to create universally accessible sites. This Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is just one of the W3C's areas of interest. As explained in the following quote, the W3C is committed to the concept of "Universal Access":

"W3C defines the Web as the universe of network-accessible information (available through your computer, phone, television, or networked refrigerator...). Today this universe benefits society by enabling new forms of human communication and opportunities to share knowledge. One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability. W3C's Internationalization Activity, Mobile Activity, TVWeb Activity, Voice Browser Activity, and Web Accessibility Initiative all illustrate our commitment to universal access."

Source: W3C... in 7 points

Accesskeys

Accesskeys aid keyboard navigation by providing shortcuts to important or common parts of a site. Many browsers support such shortcuts via key combinations, such as ALT + accesskey, or CTRL + accesskey. Sometimes it is also necessary to then press the ENTER key.

Accesskeys used on this site

We have followed the current trend regarding the use of author defined access keys and the potential conflict with other pre-defined keyboard shortcuts and we have decided to reduce the number of accesskeys to only a few:

  • 0: accessibility notice;
  • 1: home page;
  • 2: about us;
  • 3: site map;
  • 4: search;
  • 7: privacy policy;
  • 8: terms of use;
  • 9: contact page;
  • Q: skip to content;
  • Z: top of page;
  • X: text-version;

Links

  1. The first link on each page is an invisible "Skip to content" link that enables screen readers to bypass the navigation links at the top of the page.
  2. Links are written to make sense out of context. Many browsers and screen readers (such as JAWS for Windows, IBM Home Page Reader, Lynx, and Opera) can extract the list of links on a page and allow the user to browse the list, separately from the page.
  3. Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target. This is a work-in-progress.
  4. Adjacent links are separated in one of two ways: (a) structurally, as list elements, or (b) by interposing a non-blank character, such as a vertical bar. This helps screen readers to render the links distinctly.
  5. Two links with the same link text always point to the same address.
  6. All links can be followed in any browser, even if scripting is turned off.
  7. There are no links that open new windows, except if the user selects to do so.

Tables

  1. All data tables are simple. That is, the column headers for any given data cell are in the same column as the cell, and similarly for the row headers and rows. Column and row headers are always marked up as such, and always form the first column or row. This allows screen readers to render the table intelligently.
  2. Each data table has a caption and a summary. The summary is not displayed visually, but provides an extended description that can be read by a screen reader.
  3. No tables were used for layout purposes.

Images

  1. All content images specify equivalent alt text. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes or are used in the background.
  2. Complex images specify a longdesc document. This enables screen readers to give an extended text-only description to non-visual readers. This is a work-in-progress.
  3. There are no animated or flickering images.

Javascript and other scripting languages

  1. This site uses Javascript. However, Javascript support is not required to use this site, and may be disabled:
    • Most of the scripts used in this Web site are used for presentational purposes only and will not affect page's usability if Javascript support is not available;
    • The "New Window" script eventually used in pages containg thumbnails will not prevent the full-size images of being loaded in case Javascript support is not available: In this case, the full-size images will be loaded in a regular browser window.

Overall design

  1. The majority of the pages on this site validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Logical markup reflects the document structure. The pages currently not compliant are the three "self-tests", where the script used requires a "name" attribute to be used in the form; the attribute "name" for the form element has been deprecated in XHTML 1.0 Strict, so we have used XHTML 1.0 Transitional in those pages.
  2. Externally linked stylesheets are used to deliver a consistent visual layout.
  3. The combination of valid CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and Strict XHTML helps to maintain a separation between content and presentation, enabling the document to be more easily rendered by non-visual user agents.
  4. If your browser does not support stylesheets, or if they are switched off, the content of the page is still readable and usable.
  5. This site uses a CSS-Signature so that you can use your own stylesheet applied to this site only. The ID's used were:
    1. <html id="www-excellentsite-org">
    2. <body id="excellentsite-org" class="bodysection">
  6. This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers.
  7. We have also developed our own text-only script that is available in every page (the "text-version" link). This will create instantly a text-only version of the page.
  8. Some of the main pages, like our policies, contact, criteria and articles are also available in MP3 sound files that can be downloaded and/or opened directly from the site. These pages have a "Speak this" link in the navigation menu, linking to the voice file. We recommend you the free text-to-speech application "Sayz Me - Version 0.5", available at Sourceforge.net, that enables you to automatically have any text copied to the clipboard converted to speech.
  9. No plugin whatsoever is needed to use this web site.
  10. Javascript support is not required to use this site, and may be disabled.

Scope

We believe that all pages on this site conform to level AAA of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and have passed all automated checks available. If you find a page that you think does not conform or if you have any kind of difficulty using our site or any of its pages, please let us know so that we can correct it.