Tell me about Web.Comp!

Web.Comp has had a new format since 2021. Previously, the fifth week of every competition stream was a Design Tournament, with a theme unique to each stream. Now instead of having a Design Tournament for each stream, there is only a single Design Tournament which is open to anyone. Also the Advanced stream is not being run this year.

Take me to Web.Comp

Beginners Stream

The Beginners stream has no major changes from the previous versions, except that the Design Tournament is a separate course. It is a four week competition in which the following topics are covered:

• Intro to creating websites using HTML & CSS;
• Styling text, changing fonts, and adding colour;
• Adding images and background images;
• Adding links to other pages and websites;
• HTML document structure;
• Page layout, including margins, borders, padding, layout modes, and grouping elements together;
• Styling with classes, adding icons, and hover text.

All problems are open-ended: Student submissions are marked by our auto-marker, but outside the problem requirements, students can use their creativity to design their solutions however they like.

Intermediate Stream

The Intermediate stream is also a four week competition. When the changes to the competition format were made in 2021 this stream was completely rewritten from the ground up!

• All new topics:
  • Text readability and visual accessibility;
  • User actions and action discoverability; 
  • The Squint Test and visual hierarchy;
  • User goals and expectations;
  • Locality, intuitiveness and orienting in digital space;
  • Interacting with and understanding users;
  • Form inputs, controls and navigation;
  • Cross-platform design;
  • From brief to prototype: user personas, stories and tasks;
  • User experiments and experimental design.
• Interactive slides: Slides aren't just for reading anymore! Students can follow along with simple instructions to help them reinforce concepts on the slide and receive feedback as they complete tasks.
• Open-ended problems: Intermediate joins Beginners in the open-ended revolution! Students can express their creativity by designing solutions for flexible problem requirements. Our auto-marker still marks submissions to test students on what they've learnt and awards points.

Design Tournament

After students complete either stream, they can go on to the Design Tournament. In the tournament, we'll provide an HTML document for students to style with CSS. Designs can be submitted into the Design Tournament, where students can vote for their favourites. Their design or someone they know might even end up on the leaderboard!

The Design Tournament runs in the week after the Beginners and Intermediate streams end. Students aren't required to complete or even enrol in either stream, but the tournament assumes HTML/CSS knowledge from the Beginners stream.