In conclusion, it's all about sites that perform.

No, you didn't read that wrong. We started this article with our conclusion. That's because winning awards -- no matter who is winning them --  is all about sites that perform on a number of levels. And while winning awards is gratifying to any team that worked on a project, the real reward is how well the site performs for the client.

Here are some of the ways and whys IMA's award winners -- New York City Ballet's Balanchine 100, IATSE International, and Aquis Communications -- reach their optimum performance level:

1. These are projects that all started with well-defined business objectives.
   For Balanchine 100, it was important to create a tribute to the master that would not only stand out in a year filled with other such tributes, but would serve to extend George Balanchine's personality and contribution to the world to those who are passionate about his memory as well as those who are meeting him for the first time. For IATSE International, the site audience is a group of professionals who are second to none in creating wonderful moments in film and television -- who know how to value and who deserve a site that mirrors those production qualities while still being easy to update. For Aquis Communications, the client was in the process of reinventing itself, but, unlike many others in that situation, the executive staff could clearly define the direction the company was moving in. As the private pager market was evaporating based on the explosion of cell phones, the organizational pager market, particularly in light of security concerns, became Aquis' opportunity space.
   
   
2. These sites do not compromise on production values or aesthetics, but form still feeds function.
   With both Balanchine and IATSE International there was a store of fine images to work from, inspiring innovative Web frameworks that would complement that material. With Aquis, especially in the home page Flash rotation, the IMA team worked collaboratively with the client to find precisely the right images from professional photo sources. All three sites included Macromedia Flash elements that made the sites dynamic and interesting, but form was never allowed to impinge on the functionality or the underlying purpose and goals of the three sites.
   
   
3. These sites offer valuable content to their users.
   Once upon a time, someone decided that "content was king" on the Internet. You don't hear that much anymore, but it remains true that a beautiful site with nothing to say is going to be a loser in the long term.
   
   
4. These sites offer valuable applications to their users.
   Whether you are looking for a Balanchine centennial performance anywhere in the world, want to send an immediate message to someone's pager, or are looking for information about an IATSE union in the US or Canada, these sites deliver. Each site has carefully designed applications that meet true user needs.
   
   
5. These sites are easy to navigate, and immediately intuitive to the user.
   All of the above features are rendered useless if a user cannot locate them while navigating the site. These sites all take usability seriously, from information architecture to design and through programming. 
   

Mike Sauce, president of Horizon Interactive Awards, explained that this year's winners had set the bar particularly high, adding, "This year’s competition showed us that developers are now effectively utilizing new technologies in conjunction with solid design principles to create effective and creative interactive media solutions with purpose." To which we conclude -- it's all about Web sites that perform.