by Mark | May 1, 2024 | Web Competitions, Web Design, Web Development
About a month ago we published an article highlighting our work with states to run their web design and development competitions in anticipation of the national competition in Atlanta, GA this June. Today, we are looking at how we helped facilitate the state competition that Illinois ran on April 25th.
Since we started working directly with states in 2022, we have seen the level of competition improve significantly at both the state level and national level. Students are better prepared than ever to hit the ground running on day one and contribute to team success. Each year, more and more states sign up for the package we offer that includes the following:
- Online web design exam similar to what the competitors might see at nationals
- Competition project with client assets and judging rubric
- Handouts for competitors with overview and links to resources
- Online development environment “IDE” for each competitive team
- Support for judges and competition chairs
State SkillsUSA programs enjoy working with Web Professionals Global because we enable them to facilitate the competition rather than have the burden of creating the competition from scratch. Competitors and judges can participate either in person or remotely using our support tools. This enables states to utilize a wider range of judges, as many enjoy participating but cannot take the time from other obligations to join in person for a full day or more. In addition to helping run the Illinois competition, we helped the following states in the spring of 2024: Washington, South Carolina, Arizona, Rhode Island, Vermont, Texas, Nevada, Florida, Kentucky, Kansas, Oregon and Oklahoma.
Running the Competition
Let’s look at how the IL competition ran to see how our package makes life easier for the teams, volunteers and judges that make each state competition happen. What happened in Illinois is similar to what happens in each state choosing the Web Professionals Global package for their competition.
First, the Illinois SkillsUSA team contacted Web Professionals Global to schedule the state competition and receive the competition kit. In the following days, the Illinois SkillsUSA team met with the Web Professionals Global team to get trained on what to expect on the day of the competition and how to ensure it went smoothly.
On the day of the competition, teams showed up to the venue and received handouts outlining how the competition would run. This included an introductory video outlining the online development environments, also known as IDE (although most teams don’t need to review much as many are already with online coding environments *such as VSCode). The team members also logged into their IDE to make sure they were ready to go when the competition began. The IDE also contained the client assets along with a readme file explaining what each team needs to focus on if they want to win the competition (for example, make certain to preview your work to verify images are linked properly).
Students were then introduced to their client for the competition and began to analyze the client’s needs, target audience and images and logos they would be using. After this introduction, students began the competition in their teams and started building their websites. Teams are not allowed to use frameworks of any sort (or help from AI), and doing so results in disqualification. We want competitors to use their knowledge and skills to demonstrate their understanding of responsive design, web accessibility and much more. Relying on a framework can hamper this demonstration as frameworks can be relied upon as a crutch.
Upon completion of the competition, the judges used the online judging system provided by Web Professionals Global. This included a fair and easy-to-use rubric for judging the work of each team. Judges are able to review all teams’ work from a single view and can examine the end result or the code directly in the browser. This system ensures a transparent judging process that is consistent with the process that winning teams experience at the national competition. The winners of the Illinois competition were then submitted to the national competition and invited to participate in June.
We are proud to be a part of this growing network of state competitions. Feel free to get in touch with us if you are interested in learning more and having your state take advantage of our solution next year.
by Mark | Mar 20, 2024 | Web Competitions
Web Professionals Global is proud to once again support state SkillUSA web design and development competitions in 2024. This will be the third year we have helped states ahead of the national competition in June in Atlanta, GA. Before reading on, check out our article from 2022 outlining the new streamlined model we created so states could more easily run their own competitions.
SkillsUSA state competitions can be run in person or entirely online, making it easy for more students to join and participate in each state. Not only does the new approach make it easier for any state to run their own web design and development competition, but it also ensures that every state is conducting their own competition to prepare students for the national competition. This model gives all states the same turnkey resources to ensure a successful competition that engages students. We are seeing the tangible results of our efforts as states that utilize our support have been better prepared for the national competition in the summer.
What does the Web Professionals Global Competition pack include?
Competitor Support
- Online web design exam similar to what the competitors might see at nationals
- Competition project with client assets and judging rubrics
- Handouts for competitors with overview and links to resources
- Online development environment “IDE” for each competitive team
State Event Team and Judge Support
With easy access to competitor IDEs, judges can quickly judge the websites. Judge training videos aligned to the state level competition help them understand how to use the scoring rubric to judge similar to how the national event is judged. There is also a competition scoring rubric tied to the unique competition problem “The Work Order.” And national event team mentors access allows state-level event coordinators to get extra help running their state events.
“Web Professionals Global wants to thank all of the Web Design National Event team members who helped us build this year’s state competition package and support the state competition event teams.” – Mark DuBois, Executive Director of Web Professionals Global and Tech Chair for the National SkillsUSA Web Design and Development competition
Testimonials
Here are a few testimonials from organizers on state teams we have worked with in past years:
“The supplied client assets and coding environment were easy to use, and the collaborative piece between team members was invaluable for them to see real-time results. Mark and his team were invaluable in not only providing a real-time environment for students to code a website, but their attention to detail is impeccable. They are readily available to answer any questions and offered tips in advance to help the competition run as smoothly as possible. They made me feel much more comfortable knowing they were a phone call or email away. I would highly recommend using their product for any web design competition.” – Matt MacKay, WCSD Signature Academies & CTE Department, Nevada
Mark, your platform and contest is very well-designed and easy to use. The students truly loved competing in this contest! I can’t wait to see what you all have for nationals as well. It’s going to be wonderful! We thoroughly enjoyed the integration into this year’s contest and look forward to working with you again on next year’s contest!” – Renee Blackshear, Instructor, Statewide Faculty Senate, SkillsUSA Texas
2024 Schedule
Below is the schedule so far for the 2024 state competitions:
- Washington: March 22
- South Carolina: March 27
- Vermont: April 4
- Texas: April 6
- Nevada: April 11
- Florida: April 16
- Oklahoma: April 21-22
- Kansas: April 24-25
- Illinois: April 25
Visit here for more information on SkillsUSA state and local competitions. If you are interested in working with Web Professionals Global to run your own state web design and development competition, please contact us today.
by Mark | Jul 14, 2023 | Web Competitions
You may have read our recent article on our participation in the SkillsUSA National Web Design and Development competition in Atlanta, GA that took place in June. Today we are highlighting how we helped Texas run their state SkillsUSA competition and how that experience helped prepare their students for the national competition. In fact, two Texas students, Jean-Paul Metoyer and Carl Omondi of Carl Wunsche Senior High School in Spring, TX (pictured above with Mark DuBois and Jonathan Worent of Web Professionals Global) won the gold medal for the high school competition. Web Professionals Global is proud to welcome Jean-Paul and Carl into our membership ranks.
First, let’s take a look at how Web Professionals Global helped Texas and other states with their competitions. Competitions can be run in person or entirely online, making it easy for more students to join and participate in each state. Not only does the new approach make it easier for any state to run their own web design and development competition, but it also ensures that every state is conducting their own competition to prepare students for the national competition. This model gives all states the same turnkey resources to ensure a successful competition that engages students.
This is the second year for Web Professionals Global supplying turn-key competitions to the state SkillsUSA event teams. Each year we double the number of states who take advantage of our competition package. We are also seeing the results. For states that used our materials in 2022 and again this year, we saw improvements in competitors building their skills to help them better compete at the national competition.
Our competition support includes:
- Online web design exam similar to what the competitors might see at nationals
- Competition project with client assets and judging rubrics
- Handouts for competitors with overview and links to resources
- Online development environment “IDE” for each competitive team
- State event team and judge support
Hear from a member of the Texas SkillsUSA team on how we helped:
Mark, your platform and contest is very well-designed and easy to use. The students truly loved competing in this contest! I can’t wait to see what you all have for nationals as well. It’s going to be wonderful! We thoroughly enjoyed the integration into this year’s contest and look forward to working with you again on next year’s contest!” – Renee Blackshear, Instructor, Statewide Faculty Senate, SkillsUSA Texas
Jean-Paul and Carl chatting with working web professionals at the SkillUSA national competition
Hear From the Winners
We caught up with Jean-Paul and Carl to hear about their experience in the state and national competitions.
How do you feel the state competition prepared you for the national competition?
Jean-Paul: I did not compete at the state level, I subbed in for Carl’s original partner, our friend Aaron, who was going to college. However, both Carl and Aaron explained to me the difficulties of the competition, which prepared me for the level of difficulty at the national level.
Carl: Personally, getting experience at the state level was exhilarating. From the start, Aaron and I had a strategy of separating technical and creative tasks which meant we could each shine in our own way. As the person in charge of design and creative aspects of the competition, I was able to guide the direction that the web project that we would eventually turn in would take and use my creativity to solve the problems I presented. Therefore, at least towards preparation for the national event, the Texas state championships were very similar to the national competition. The only difference was that during states, it was only the technical aspect that was judged by our ability to develop a website since we had no prompt to go over and design a website around.
How did you enjoy participating in the state and national competitions?
Jean-Paul: As previously stated, I did not compete at the state level. In contrast, competing at the national level was very fun. Being able to explore Atlanta was exciting, but the competition itself was truly where all the joy was. During the orientation, other teams were asking extremely technical questions, showing me and Carl that these teams were prepared and well-knowledged. This fueled my competitive spirit, thriving me to do great in tandem with Carl in order to win. The prompt surrounding a nature-based nonprofit website was very fun to design and develop, even with the restrictions. Overall I had lots of fun competing, experiencing Atlanta, and socializing with other competitors.
Carl: I absolutely loved competing at the national level in SkillsUSA. As I found out, apparently the Texas delegation was infamous for doing things its own way and is generally independent of the other states in terms of planning and hotel booking; meaning that I did not get to meet that many people from other states during my stay at the hotel. With that being said, however, meeting a range of different people all the way from Alaska and Hawai’i to Oregon and Maine was an intriguing experience coming from the hot fields of Texas. I loved the pin exchange experience and the rush of awe and interest anytime I would ask people what state they are from.
What was it like hearing from the panel of three web professionals (Angel, Jessica and Shan) who are succeeding in the world of web design and development?
Jean-Paul: Hearing from the three speakers was very enlightening and informative, as I could relate to some of their experiences with starting coding at an early age. It also gave me a tangible insight on the world of web development after high school and college. Being able to hear from these speakers both reaffirmed my goals within software development and made me feel like I was on the right track.
Carl: The concentration of deep and valuable technical and career knowledge I got during that talk cannot be adequately explained. A salient point I noted from that talk is that it changed my perception about career advancement and how I can approach breaking into web development. I had always thought that it was better to do a range of things since it would make me more valuable as a web developer. However, the panel of judges completely went against that philosophy by basically saying that being an expert is going to help me get further and be more valued. This is just one of the lessons that I got during that talk and it is immensely going to impact the path that I take moving forward towards my career. And for that, I thank the panel and Web Professionals Global for serendipitously exposing me to such knowledge early on in my career.
What is it about web design that you love so much?
Jean-Paul: My favorite part of web design is that it mixes logic with art, which are two things I love dealing with. Staring at my screen for hours trying to figure out how to center a div or implementing an animation brings a lot of joy to me because at the basic level, it’s like solving a math problem, but with art involved.
Carl: The most intriguing aspect about web design and development is the brainstorming process. Whether it is thinking about the most effective way to communicate a brand or what technical techniques I can employ to bring a certain design to life, the euphoric lift I get every time I creatively solve a problem is what keeps me going in this industry and pushes me to learn more.
How does it feel knowing you are now members of Web Professionals Global, an international professional association?
Jean-Paul: Joining Web Professionals Global, an international professional association, is a humbling experience. It’s a reminder of the vast, interconnected world of web professionals that I am now a part of. This opportunity is not just a recognition of my efforts in web development, but also a responsibility to learn, contribute, and grow within this global community. I am grateful for this chance to deepen my understanding and look forward to the journey ahead.
Carl: I see this as definitive proof that I am indeed not as inadequate, technically speaking, as my imposter syndrome sometimes paints me to be.
What was your favorite part of the competition?
Jean-Paul: My favorite part of the competition was during the coding section. Being able to mix the technical side of coding with the artistic part of web design is always enjoyable to me, which is what the heart of this competition is.
Carl: My favorite part of the competition was the design part as we were given the prompt for the non-profit. The adrenaline flowing through my body as I was writing together every piece of information I could about the company in order to translate it into a design that satisfies the prompt was engaging and my favorite part of the process.
What went through your mind when you saw Texas on the big screen?
Jean-Paul: As soon as we saw Texas as the finalist, Carl and I jumped up grabbing each other, screaming in elation. To see all the months of fundraising, trying to get a bigger budget, and practicing all coming together was truly an amazing moment.
Carl: In that moment, it was absolute euphoria.
How did it make you feel when you were on stage in front of over 16,000 people and Mark, the Executive Director, was hanging the gold medals on you two?
Jean-Paul: It was one of the best feelings that I ever experienced. For all our hard work to pay off was calming yet exhilarating. And to have Mark, one of the best developers I have ever met, to give us the award was truly an honor.
What did you say to each other afterward?
Jean-Paul: We were so happy to have the award ceremony end, because we were extremely nervous throughout the almost two hours of waiting for our competition to be called. This left us with our thoughts about if we could actually win, which was very nerve-racking. Overall, we were elated that everything was over and that we did not have to worry anymore.
Carl: Technically, the very first words out of my mouth when we found out we were finalists were “No way” over and over again as the Texas state delegation cheered us on. Afterwards, Jean and I, from the moment we left the stage to the hotel and plane, kept talking about how our efforts to both fundraise and coach ourselves to nationals paid off. Coming from a Title I high school, fundraising for nationals was a communal effort for us involving everyone from the librarian to the custodians and district administration. Therefore, the knowledge that we could now bring back something to show all those who had helped us in a myriad of different ways that their efforts were worth something was the immediate reward prior to finding out that we were indeed number one in the United States for web development.
Who did you call first?
Jean-Paul: The first people we talked to were our friends in a group chat who we had competed with at the state level in other competitions, and who helped fundraise throughout the entire process.
Carl: Unfortunately, my phone died as we were backstage about to receive our medals. However, leading up to the release of the final spots, I had texted my friends in a group chat who were all watching live from different parts of the country and world.
What would you tell students who are thinking of participating in next year’s state and national Web Design and Development competitions?
Jean-Paul: To definitely prepare. The competitors at the national level are very knowledgeable about every aspect of the competition, so you need to prepare for everything.
Carl: The most practical advice I can give for next year’s competitors is, as cliché as it is, to practice. Indeed, most of the knowledge that I applied towards winning nationals came from making my own web projects and that is what helped land me this distinction as a national champion. With technology, and by proxy the web, becoming ever more ubiquitous in our lives, it is only going to get more competitive moving forward; thus practicing by making more projects is the best way to learn since that is the technical skill that is going to be judged the most especially at the national level.
Jean-Paul and Carl on stage with the silver and bronze medal winners as well as Web Professionals Global team members
Congrats again to Jean-Paul, Carl and all the other competitors for a job well done. If you are a student, teacher or parent interested in hearing more about how you can get involved in next year’s state and national competitions, contact us today at 662-493-2776 or membership@webprofessionalsglobal.org.
by Mark | Jun 29, 2023 | Web Competitions
Web Professionals Global was proud to once again participate in the 2023 SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference in Atlanta, GA at the Georgia World Congress Center from June 19-23. Web Professionals Global ran the Web Design and Development competition for the 20th year in a row, providing students from a number of states with the opportunity to participate. This comes on the heels of our organization helping to facilitate some state competitions, the winners of which were invited to the national competition. Check out this previous article on how we helped run the state competitions.
As Executive Director, I (Mark) would like to thank Dave, Bryce, Jonathan and Steve for traveling to Atlanta and helping to put on yet another successful competition. This team has been helping with this competition for years, and we are so grateful. We could not have done it without you.
Competition Overview
For those not familiar with how the SkillsUSA National Web Design and Development competition, the competition guidelines were as follows: Teams of two completed a series of challenges focusing on creating a website for a client and a specific target audience. Judging focused on meeting the client’s needs, usability and accessibility, and industry-standard best practices. Teams were evaluated on the process they used to meet the challenges and how well they worked as a team. Teams used the internet to access all competition materials (including the coding environment).
The Web Professionals Global Organization SkillsUSA team provided the students with not only a competitive environment to test their technical skills but also real-world training from real-world professionals and networking opportunities.
The competition was divided into the following days:
Tuesday, June 20:
This was training day when the secondary and post-secondary teams gained some real world training from Jonathan, the Director of Competitive Events for Web Professionals Global, and me (Mark). We talked about the competition, industry trends, and the web design process from concept to launch.
The competitors were then treated to a lively interactive panel discussion with three local web professionals representing web coding and project management (Angel McCurdy), branding and graphics (Jessica Murphy) and web marketing and entrepreneurship (Shan Thomas). The competitors learned the importance of audience engagement, perseverance, execution and much more.
Wednesday, June 21:
This was the day of the secondary competition for high school students.
Thursday, June 22:
This was the day of the post-secondary competition for college students. We also held a competition debrief at the end of the day.
Friday, June 23:
This was the awards ceremony at State Farm Arena, where 16,880 SkillsUSA competitors, advisors and event runners all showed up for the big reveal of the winners in over 100 different events.
Competition Winners
High School
Gold: Carl Omondi/Jean-Paul Metoyer, Carl Wunsche Senior High School, Spring, TX
Silver: Daniel Cardone/Natalia Vazquez, Blackstone Valley RVTHS, Upton, MA
Bronze: Rhys Jordan/Steven Shoen, Meridian Technical Charter High School, Meridian, ID
College
Gold: Allen Gustrowsky/Brandon Gustrowsky, Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, TN
Silver: Eric Nims/Elizabeth Sheba, Gwinnett Technical College, Lawrenceville, GA
Bronze: Kenli Shaw/Michael Vars, Northwest Kansas Technical College, Goodland, KS
Congratulations to all the winners and participants in the competition. We had an outstanding group of students who all have very bright futures in the industry. In the coming days we will be publishing more articles about the competition, so stay tuned.
Reach out to us today for information on our certification programs and the work we are doing to further the community of web professionals.
Check out more photos from the competition here
by Steve Waddell | May 23, 2023 | Web Competitions
Web Professionals Global is proud to support state SkillUSA web design and development competitions for a second year in 2023 ahead of the national competition in June in Atlanta, GA. Before continuing on, check out our article from last year outlining the new and streamlined model we created so states could more easily run their own competitions.
Competitions can be run in person or entirely online, making it easy for more students to join and participate in each state. Not only does the new approach make it easier for any state to run their own web design and development competition, but it also ensures that every state is conducting their own competition to prepare students for the national competition. This model gives all states the same turnkey resources to ensure a successful competition that engages students.
This is the second year for Web Professionals Global supplying turn-key competitions to the state SkillsUSA event teams. Each year we double the number of states who take advantage of our competition package. We are also seeing the results. For states that used our materials in 2022 and again this year, we could see improvements in competitors building their skills to help them better compete at the national competition.
What does the Web Professionals Global Competition pack include?
Competitor Support
- Online web design exam similar to what the competitors might see at nationals
- Competition project with client assets and judging rubrics
- Handouts for competitors with overview and links to resources
- Online development environment “IDE” for each competitive team
State Event Team and Judge Support
With easy access to competitor IDEs, judges can quickly judge the websites. Judge training videos aligned to the state level competition help them understand how to use the scoring rubric to judge similar to how the national event is judged. There is also a competition scoring rubric tied to the unique competition problem “The Work Order.” And national event team mentors access allows state-level event coordinators to get extra help running their state events.
“The Web Professionals Global Organization wants to thank all of the Web Design National Event team members who helped us build this year’s state competition package and support the state competition event teams. I would like to give a special thanks to Jonathan for his fantastic problem design.” – Mark DuBois, Executive Director of WebProfessionalsGlobal.org and Tech Chair for National SkillsUSA Web Design and Development competition.
Shout out to the coordinators and their event teams in MD, LA, TX, IN, KY, NV, OK and IL, which all had the chance to experience a competitive event that best prepares them for the national competition.
The states we worked with had great things to say about this model and working with Web Professionals Global. Here are several testimonials:
Mark, your platform and contest is very well-designed and easy to use. The students truly loved competing in this contest! I can’t wait to see what you all have for nationals as well. It’s going to be wonderful! We thoroughly enjoyed the integration into this year’s contest and look forward to working with you again on next year’s contest!” – Renee Blackshear, Instructor, Statewide Faculty Senate, SkillsUSA Texas
“The supplied client assets and coding environment were easy to use, and the collaborative piece between team members was invaluable for them to see real-time results. Mark and his team were invaluable in not only providing a real-time environment for students to code a website, but their attention to detail is impeccable. They are readily available to answer any questions and offered tips in advance to help the competition run as smoothly as possible. They made me feel much more comfortable knowing they were a phone call or email away. I would highly recommend using their product for any web design competition.” – Matt MacKay, WCSD Signature Academies & CTE Department, Nevada
Below is the full completed schedule for the 2023 state competitions:
Maryland: March 25
Louisiana: March 30
Texas: March 31 and April 14
Indiana: April 15
Kentucky: April 20
Nevada: April 20
Oklahoma: April 24
Illinois: April 28
If you are interested in working with Web Professionals Global to run your own state web design and development competition, contact us today.
by Mark | Mar 21, 2023 | Web Competitions
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.
