It’s official! The Most Accessible Website in Ireland is Kanchi, a site created by Brightspark during the summer.  I’m so glad it won for a number of reasons:

• Kanchi’s mission is to change the way society thinks about disability. So it’s only fitting that their site is the Most Accessible in Ireland.
• The site was also shortlisted for Most Beautiful Website in Ireland and that in itself says something.  Accessibility and beauty do not normally go hand in hand, so am particularly pleased about this.
• A site like Kanchi would not have been picked up by the other two awards. Not for profits generally don’t have the spare cash to be able to afford entry into the Golden Spiders.  And they are usually too busy doing good things to have the time to email everyone who knows them to ask for a vote in the IIA awards.  The Irish Web Awards was set up to honour sites that are doing everything right; it means more to me to win this award because it’s validation by peers in the industry – who can be the toughest critics of all.
• This is Brightspark’s 3rd year in a row to be nominated for awards.  I really wanted to win something and not have to do the smiling and clapping when someone else walked up to pick up the prize again!

Winning this award also gives validation to Brightspark’s business process.  A couple of years ago, I introduced a new approach which has been working exceedingly well.  Brightspark puts together teams for projects. When I meet a client and understand their vision, their style, and their budget, I go off and put together the very best team to deliver their job.

For Kanchi, this involved Ken Stanley on coding , Ray Doyle on design, Jess Kelly on video content, and me on copywriting and project management.  The most perfect talent for the job works together for the duration of the project.  When the project is delivered, it moves to a less costly maintenance team for updates.  For clients it means they get access to the best talent in town at an all-in price.  The teams get to work on what they do best on exciting projects.  And I get to work with amazing individuals without buying into one design style or coding capability.

I’d like to thank IQ Content for sponsoring this award.  I have the utmost respect for the work that they do, so again it was more validation to be accepting the award from people I admire.

You can view all the winners here. Without wanting to sound too gushy, I think they are all brilliant so I don’t want to name any one over another.  But go – check these sites out, admire, and be inspired!