In recent exciting news, our exhibition website, Billy Hughes at War, has finished runner up in the 2008 McFarlane Prize for excellence in Australian web design.

The website, produced by the design team at Icelab, was ‘highly commended by the judges’. The award was made at the recent Web Directions South conference in Sydney on 25 November, 2008.

The website launched in February 2008 to complement the Billy Hughes at War traveling exhibition, which commenced at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, in February 2008. The exhibition is currently showing at Old Parliament House.

The Billy Hughes at War website examines the actions and decisions of Billy Hughes, who led Australia as prime minister through some of the hardest years of the First World War. Three interactive sections on the website allow visitors to learn about Prime Minister Billy Hughes, the conscription debate and Australia’s involvement in the peace negotiations.

The McFarlane Prize is awarded to an Australian designer or team for a site launched or significantly upgraded between August 1 2007 and August 31 2008. The Prize rewards excellence in web design in the broadest sense, from the appropriate use of technology to design aesthetics and is awarded by a jury of Australian experts in various fields of web design and development.

The decision process is rigorous and has two stages. In the first, entries are assessed for their adherence to best practices in accessibility and standards based coding (correct and valid use of CSS and HTML). Based on the two rounds of judging, the McFarlane Prize shortlist was announced in September.