Golden Bee Award

Buzzle.com wants users to know which sites to pay special attention to. Our Editors bestow the one of a kind Golden Bee Award™ to the web sites they like the most. Sites are evaluated by several criteria. Not all winning sites will score top-notch in every category. Sometimes, a site's innovative products, alternative approach, or valuable content more than make up for a few shortcomings. You can be sure sites given this award have earned the distinction.

Eligibility:
To be eligible for the Golden Bee Award, your site must be listed in at least one of the Buzzle directory chapters. Sites listed in the Buzzle.com links index are not eligible for this award. (If your site is in the link index, it can be found only from a Buzzle.com Quick Search and is not displayed within any chapters.)

Judging Criteria:

Content
Organization
Visual Design
Navigation
Overall Experience

Content
The information, in whatever form, provided by the site. Content is rated for its relevance to the purpose of the site, and its ability to pack a wallop in a few words or images.

Organization
Buzzle.com editors review the site for its structure and ease of navigation. The site should be structured logically, so the user knows where he or she is in the site at any given time, without having to put much effort into figuring it out. Also, they ask whether text or image links available in predicable places.

Artistic and Visual Design
A site's visual design is more than graphics and color schemes. It encompasses a number of aspects:

Are the colors and images easy on the eyes?
Does the visual look of the site assist with or detract from the site's purpose?
Does the site convey the same impression visually as it does in words?
Do the choices of colors and layout attract the user's attention in a pleasing way? Does it accomplish what it is set to accomplish?

Functionality
Functionality encompasses any portion of the site that requires or invites user interaction. This includes navigation, placement of image and text links, page layout, use of plug-ins, the length of time it takes to load a page, functioning pages, and lack of broken links.

Editors judge functionality based upon the site's intuitive-ness. Does the site work? Any page errors, difficulties using search tools, DHTML menus, etc.? What about the placement of text and image links? Does placement and color of links help or hinder the user's navigation? Are these items in the same place on every page? If a plug-in is used, was it used tastefully? Was it a common format? Does the site offer a way for the user to download the plug in?

Overall Experience
Beyond the elements listed above, editors gauge their overall experiences at the site. Did they like what they saw there, did they leave confused or frustrated, would they send this site to a friend, did they feel valued. Also, if in the course of reviewing a site, an editor sends a message from a form or email address on the site, did the site respond to them, quickly or at all? Did the editor get a sense of the site's responsiveness to its users? How easy was this site to find? Does it show up in the search engines easily?

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