CNA Website Awarded “Site Of The Week” Honors

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA — CNA (CNA) today announced that it has been honored as "Site of the Week" for the week of June 12 by commarts.com, the online version of Communication Arts magazine, a leading trade journal for visual communications.

"It’s a very rewarding and important honor," said CNA Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs, Noel Gerson. "Rewarding because of the work and effort that has gone into creating the site and making it broadly accessible, and important because of what it says about the site’s value and effectiveness as an information resource for policy makers, academia, the media, and the general public.

"CNA works in the public interest, and our vision when we started to build the new site was to create something that functionally and visually engages our audiences and makes our research more available and accessible. It’s a vision that we’ve realized and that we will continue to build on in the future."

As explained on commarts.com, "It’s the exceptionally clear, well designed and organized information structure that sets [the CNA] site apart. The extensive content is separated from the navigation in an interface that takes a cue from the print world with subtle graphic divisions and clearly defined access to information. It’s an easy to learn composition that’s not only consistent, but audience appropriate. Sample studies are available in standard PDF format, which are offered in abridged and full-length versions and are pleasantly identifiable before clicking."

Gerson said that the commarts.com award confirms a level of success that is also reflected in increased traffic on the CNA site. "Before the new site was up, CNA was receiving approximately 300 visits per month. But since we’ve been online with the new site, which went live in June 2004, we’ve been getting more than 20,000 visits per month. The site’s working and working well, and it’s nice to have it recognized. Our hope is that in the months and years to come our research will become a real resource to enlighten and inform public policy development and debates."

Commenting on the award, Todd Rice, whose company, Saforian, collaborated with CNA to design the site, said, "There are, literally, millions of sites out there and the Communication Arts people aren’t easily impressed. So to be selected as one of just 52 sites that will achieve site-of-the-week status this year is a true honor."

Founded in 1959, Communication Arts is the leading trade journal for visual communications. It is the largest design magazine in the world and showcases the top work in graphic design, advertising, illustration, photography, and interactive design.