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The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has received sixteen awards (see table below) in the Web Accessibility Recognition Scheme 2016, making it one of the participating organizations which received the highest number of awards this year. Among the awards won, the ‘Most Favourite Website / Mobile App Award’, the ‘Easiest-to-Use Website / Mobile App Award’ and the ‘Triple Gold Award’, were awarded to the CUHK website (www.cuhk.edu.hk) and CUHK Mobile and nine other University websites received the ‘Gold Award’. 

Prof. Michael Hui, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of CUHK received the awards on behalf of the University at the presentation ceremony held at the Cyberport today (19 April).  He remarked, ‘Nowadays, it is very popular to obtain information from around the world via the Internet, but people with disabilities encounter many difficulties while browsing the Internet, and their access to knowledge is compromised. The Chinese University of Hong Kong offers its full support to the Web Accessibility Recognition Scheme, and has been participating in the Scheme and receiving awards for four consecutive years. This year, a number of websites and mobile apps from CUHK have been presented with gold awards. We are also the winner of the “Easiest-to-Use Website Award”, “Easiest-to-Use Mobile App Award”, one of the “Most Favourite Website Awards”, and one of the “Most Favourite Mobile App Awards”, testifying to the recognition accorded to us by the community. All this is proof of our determination to serve the community, and our accomplishments today will spur us on to further success.’ 

The ceremony was officiated at by Ir. Allen Yeung, Government Chief Information Officer, and well attended by representatives from award winning enterprises, NGOs, educational institutions and public sector organizations.  The recognition scheme was jointly organized by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and the Equal Opportunities Commission to encourage web accessibility among organizations in various industries and sectors, and to showcase corporations that have demonstrated outstanding efforts in facilitating access to their websites and mobile applications. 

Winners of the ‘Most Favourite Website / Mobile App Award’ and the ‘Easiest-to-Use Website / Mobile App Award’ are chosen from a number of gold award winning websites and mobile apps in the past three years. The former is awarded to the top three vote-winners, while the latter is awarded to those considered to be the most user-friendly by persons with special needs.  The ‘Triple Gold Award’ is presented to any website / mobile app that has attained gold awards consecutively for the past three years. 

The ‘Gold Award’ is presented to organizations whose websites and mobile applications have fulfilled 24 and 18 judging criteria, respectively. These criteria include meaningfully sequenced and structured contents, clear headings and informative links, and high compatibility with assistive technologies to facilitate smooth navigation. The colour contrast of text and images, font size options and use of sign language should address the need of all users, including people with disabilities and the seniors. 

Details of the awarded websites and mobile application of CUHK are as follows:

Source: Communications and Public Relations Office, The Chinese University of Hong Kong