Let the race to accessibility begin!
Rally Rules

The Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR) is an annual accessible web design contest. It was created to teach accessible digital design skills in the context of a fun, friendly, web raising competition that benefits small nonprofits (e.g., schools, churches, libraries, government agencies) and independent artists (e.g. painters, photographers, authors, musicians, dancers, etc.). The rules ensure that we all have a common understanding and shared goals as we learn about inclusive design while building accessible websites for our communities.
Overview
Welcome to AIR! The rules of the road are summarized below to help you make the most of the AIR experience. We expect teams to take full advantage of the trainers, mentors, and resources provided in order to create highly accessible and usable web sites for artists and nonprofit groups that serve the community.
Basic rules for the competition are summarized below. Contact us at air@knowbility.org if you have questions.
Rally Rules
General Rules
- 1.1 The Accessibility Internet Rally (the “Rally”) involves web professionals formed into teams (“Entrants”) and community organizations such as artists, charities and nonprofits (“Clients”) - to create a website (“Entry”) for each Client that is accessible to people with disabilities.
- 1.2 The Rally is organized by Knowbility and supported by Entrant and Client registration fees, grants, sponsorship, and contributions from local agencies, businesses, schools, and individuals.
- 1.3 AIR activities are posted; all registered Entrants and Clients must be represented at the AIR activities as noted on the registration forms.
- 1.4 Any notices to Entrants, including changes to these Rules, announcements of winners, notices of disqualification, or otherwise, may be posted at the Rally Website and/or sent by email to Entrants.
Participation
- 2.1 The Accessibility Internet Rally is open to Clients and Entrants (collectively “Participants”) in three categories:
- 2.1.1 Community Organization: to qualify in this category, entities must be either a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization or an entity that exists for community benefit such as a church group, school, state and local government agencies, an arts organization, performance organization, as well as individual artists and performers, to be decided at the discretion of the Organizer. Community organizations can participate as a Client assigned to an Entrant. Community organizations with their own team of web professionals may register as both Client and Entrant.
- 2.1.2 Team of web professionals: to participate in this category, a group of up to six professionals sign on as a team. Each team shall be considered a single Entrant. No person may enter more than once, either individually or as part of any team. If an Entrant uses the name of a corporation, partnership or other legal entity, the Entrant certifies it has the permission of the entity to do so.
- 2.1.3 Individual web professional: Individuals may sign on to participate and will be matched to other individuals at the discretion of the Organizer to create an Entrant.
- 2.2 Participants must be officially registered to participate in the competition. Participants register by completing the appropriate entry form and payment of the application fee. Upon the Organizer's acceptance of this form, Participants will be sent an email confirmation. The Organizer may rely on its records and, if it chooses, Participant’s possession of an email confirmation, as full and complete evidence that Participant is successfully registered.
- 2.3 Organizer reserves the right to limit Participants to any number it chooses, using any mechanism it selects, subject to these rules and applicable state and federal laws, including non-discrimination laws.
- 2.4 By participating in the Rally, Participants fully and unconditionally agree to and accept these Rules.
- 2.5 The Organizer can in their sole discretion, disqualify any Participant whom it believes has not complied with these Rules or would violate state or federal law.
The Design: Conditions
- 3.1 Entries must be the Client’s and/or Entrant’s own original work or appropriately acknowledged open source materials.
- 3.2 Entrants are required to submit their Entries in accordance with a mechanism determined by the Organizer. This mechanism shall include instructions for preparing files for upload, file specifications including file type and file size and location for uploading.
- 3.3 Entrants will be given access to a collection of online resources (training) to help them build accessible web sites. Entrants will be expected to read and familiarize themselves with these resources prior to the Rally. Entrants will additionally be provided some live online training sessions and assigned a mentor versed in digital web accessibility.
- 3.4 Clients and Entrants must be represented at the following Rally events: AIR Kick Off and AIR Awards.
- 3.5 Entrants are expected to complete at least 6 pages. If teams wish to complete additional pages, it may not affect base score but may be considered for extra points in the category of Exemplary Effort. This is solely at the judge's discretion.
- 3.6 The following elements must be included in each Entry Submission:
- Home Page - Navigation should include search functionality
- Contact Page - Include web form
- Body Copy
- Production Deployment and Migration Plan
- Knowbility Logo with a link back to the AIR Landing Page (https://knowbility.org/programs/air)
Judges and Judging Entries
- 4.1 Entries will each be judged by two experts in accessible design, coding and development (“Judges”) - from a Judging Committee to be determined and invited by the Organizer.
- 4.2 Judges will evaluate each assigned Entry based on the following criteria: (1) accessibility; (2) creativity; (3) usability; (4) aesthetics and (5) extensibility of concept to a larger website.
- 4.3 The Client will determine to what extent the Entry meets the needs of its community constituency by submitting a report that will be provided to the Judges. Judges will accept the judgment of the Client to score the category of appropriateness for the intended audience.
- 4.4 In order to encourage more interactive, sophisticated, community-driven sites and fuller user experience, the use of third-party modules or pre-existing components is allowed under these conditions:
- 4.4.1 Third-party modules or pre-existing components may include discussion forums, shopping carts, video (including captions and audio descriptions), audio files and transcripts, and documents.
- 4.4.2 The third-party component or pre-existing module may not be the interface/template for the entire website.
- 4.4.3 The third-party component or pre-existing module will be judged as part of the site. No bonus points will be awarded for the use of such components.
- 4.5 The decisions of the Judges are final and binding.
Participant Commitments
By registering as a participant in the Accessibility Internet Rally, I make the following commitments:
General Commitments for Everyone
- Abide by these Rally Rules and Knowbility’s Code of Conduct.
- Review the judging form and the goal of creating an accessible website for the Rally.
- Adjust schedules to provide sufficient time during the competition (from the kickoff to the submission of the websites for judging) to accomplish the goal. (We recommend about 5 hours/week per person on average.)
- Promptly answer messages from other team members, the Client and Knowbility.
- Provide at least one primary phone number for the team, and one email address for each person on the team (minimum of 4, no more than 6 per team).
- Complete the AIR skills assessment used to match the Entrant team to an appropriate nonprofit Client.
- Check in with Mentor at least once a week with questions or updates.
- At least one representative from the Entrant and the Client will attend the Kickoff event, either virtually or in-person.
- At least one representative from the Entrant and the Client will attend the AIR awards, either virtually or in-person.
Entrant Commitments
- Ensure that one or more representatives attend the Kickoff and the AIR awards.
- Acknowledge that Knowbility and the AIR Client is counting on each individual team member to do their part to design and deliver an attractive, accessible and usable website by the submission date.
- Invest the time required to fully participate in design and development activities for the entire AIR event.
- Make every effort to submit the AIR Client's website Entry on the due date.
- Acknowledge that our team will receive a penalty for a late submission.
- Provide the AIR Client with training and documentation on how to maintain their site.
- Migrate the Entry (new AIR Client website) to the Client's hosted domain.
- If the AIR Client has either not provided the Entrant with the required information to complete the site migration, or the AIR Client has other reasons not to complete the migration, the Entrant will provide the AIR Client with a migration and deployment plan for moving the Entry to the Client’s hosted domain.
- Designate the following roles on your team and email their names, email addresses, and phone numbers to teenya@knowbility.org
- Team Captain, responsible for coordinating with AIR staff and mentors and providing AIR team members with program updates and opportunities for learning and networking.
- Project Manager, responsible for tracking timelines and requirements to ensure the team meets critical deadlines.
- Meet with your AIR Client as often as needed to fulfill the requirements of the AIR competition. At a minimum, the AIR team should meet with the AIR client at least once every other week during the AIR competition. Meetings can be held in person, by phone, or by video conference.
- At least once a week, meet with the AIR Mentor assigned to your AIR team. This is the best way to ensure that your questions are answered and that you have the latest updates about the competition.
Client Commitments
- Designate a lead person responsible for coordinating with Rally staff and mentors.
- One or more representatives must attend at least (1) one Client Orientation Training Session, the Kickoff, and the Awards Event.
- Prepare all content (including page names, written content, images, and videos) for your website.
- Provide a Domain Name and Hosting Service to the technical team
- Complete Site Needs Survey and Web Planning Template prior to the Kickoff.
- Meet with our web professional team as often as needed to meet our goal and at least once every other week during the rally, in person, by phone, or by video conference.
- Submit the AIR Client Team Score Survey within 2 days of the site being submitted for judging.
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