Novice	Professional
Novice designers are individuals who have used Macromedia Flash for no more than 60 days.	Professional designers are individuals who have used Macromedia Flash for more than 60 days.
First Place Winner James Straffon - Launch Chris's Pick	First Place Winner Michael Stern - Launch Chris's Pick
Second Place Winner Lary Stucker - Launch Chris's Pick	Second Place Winner Joe Mease - Launch Chris's Pick
Third Place Winner Matthew Plumstead - Launch	Third Place Winner Billy Law - Launch
Honorable Mention Mike Padilla - Launch Chris's Pick	Honorable Mention Scott Westwood - Launch
Honorable Mention John Eriksson - Launch	Honorable Mention Tom Scott - Launch
Honorable Mention David Mead - Launch	Honorable Mention Renee Perry - Launch
Honorable Mention Lennard F. Torres - Launch	Honorable Mention Harriet Golden - Launch
Honorable Mention Justin Hausaman - Launch	Honorable Mention Caroline McKeough - Launch
Honorable Mention Jacky Kwok - Launch	Honorable Mention Kaveh Ruintan - Launch Chris's Pick
Honorable Mention Paul Lovato - Launch	Honorable Mention Ann Marie Newell - Launch

With more than 700 entries from around the world, the Macromedia Design a Site for Usability contest shows that Flash developers are interested in usability and user experience when designing Flash for the web. As a judge of this contest I hope that the lesson learned from the entrants is to think about their users when developing Flash content first, last and always.

The contest process from a judges point of view was fairly simple. From the 700 entries to the contest Macromedia selected 10 finalists from each category. The 20 URL's of the finalists were then sent to the judges to pick their top three entries in each category. The judges were Eric Wittman, Director of Product Management for Macromedia Flash; Macromedia Flash/Usability experts Chris MacGregor, Editor of Flazoom.com; Steve Krug, Author and Usability Expert; Melissa Reyen, Executive Editor of Publish Magazine; Tom Ziegelbauer, Director of Internet Technology of Publish.com; also, Andy Gore, Editor-in-Chief/VP for Macworld.

I spent an entire day looking at the entries and judging them based on usability, creativity and innovation. I also made sure to use a slow connection to the Internet (about 14k per second), as the majority of web surfers are connecting at speeds under 28.8k. I was very surprised to see some sites in the 800k range. Most of the developers were smart and segmented their sites into digestible chunks. Rest assured that the size of the site factored into my picks for the best in each category. I have marked my three picks for finalists in the listings to the right.

Once the judges had their say the scores were added up and the top three were sent to Girlzilla, a New York-based usability research and design firm, who conducted formal usability tests to determine the winning entries.

Girlzilla commissioned more than 60 people to participate in the usability tests. The participants were average Internet users in their 20s and 30s--the target audience for the SnugWear site--and were evenly split by gender. Professional Web designers were prohibited from participating.

Girlzilla ran navigation and timed-based tasks, as well as capturing feedback in terms of aesthetics and brand appeal from the users. Usability testing finds which sites are easy to use, and sometimes the sites that look the best aren't the easiest to use.

"Good sites are derived through usability testing. Testing should always be part of the site creation process. It doesn't need to be a formalized lab procedure, though. You can simply pull people together and watch them run through the site. But only through testing can design flaws be discovered and fixed," said Girlzilla CEO Tina Miletich.

The final step in the contest was for Macromedia to announce the winners and hand out the sexy Powerbook G4's to the two first place winners. That happened this morning (April, 10th 2001) at the Macromedia User Con in New York City.

Flazoom.com would like to congratulate the winners and all the top ten finalists. We would also like to see your entry to the contest. If you designed a site for the contest and it did not make it into the finalists, please post the URL on the comments page.