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.
