We are working closely with a number of states this year to help them better align their state SkillsUSA web design and development competitions with our national SkillsUSA competition to be held in Atlanta. Although our calendar is rather full, we are still willing to help additional states (if they request). Just contact us as soon as possible.
Contest overview
We provide the overall environment, assets, detailed scoring rubric, and online testing environment. We do ask that each state provide a contest supervisor (physically present the day(s) of the competition and judges who have knowledge of web design and development. We offer this overview of the contest:
- You will do all of the coding in an online editor environment.
- All teams will be given the same wireframe to implement.
- You will decide the colors, fonts, spacing and other aesthetics for the client and implement the aesthetics into the provided layout.
- The ‘client’ has provided images and content.
- As is often the case in the real world with assets provided by clients, they may not be completely appropriate for the web.
- You should rename and optimize images. You may adjust and add effects to fit your aesthetic vision.
- You are not allowed to use frameworks such as Bootstrap or jQuery or React. You must be able to demonstrate competency with the foundational technologies, HTML, CSS, and JS in this competition.
- Judges will use any or all of the latest versions of the following browsers
- Desktop: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge
- Android: Chrome
- iOS: Safari on iPhone and or iPad
- Accessibility: JAWS screen reader or Apple VoiceOver
Coding Environment
We create the virtual coding environments for use by each team. We encourage competitors and judges to familiarize yourself with the coding environment prior to the competition: https://webprofessionals.site/IDEoverview (this link will open in a new browser tab). Obviously, it takes us a bit of time to spin up the individual environments for teams (which is why we ask for as much advance notice as possible).
External Resources
We are often asked if competitors can use external resources. Of course, but there are limits as we want as consistent an environment as possible (so judges can better evaluate similar work).
You will be allowed to use Google Fonts to find a font that is appropriate for the client. (https://fonts.google.com/) (this link will open in a new browser tab).
If you need textures or other design assets, you may find resources from the internet during the competition. They must have appropriate copyright licensing and sources will need to be documented. It is up to the competitor to confirm appropriate copyrights are followed (judges may likely check – disqualifying teams who do not follow copyrights).
You will need to find or create iconography for the client. We recommend https://thenounproject.com/ (this link will open in a new browser tab).
For those who would like to distribute a copy of this information, we provide a PDF version of this document.
