To quote the site:
Web usability maven Jakob Nielsen has been writing his “Alertbox” column on web usability since 1995. His web site, UseIt.com is read by millions of web professionals and other interested parties each year.
Many people, designers mostly, it seems, have ridiculed the plain, minimally-styled web site, but no one has put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, to suggest anything more stylistically attractive. Until now.
I recently contacted Mr. Nielsen about the concept for this contest, and he gave it his blessing.
The design must use valid tableless XHTML 1.0, CSS, and it must meet WAI Accessibility level 1. JavaScript, GIF, JPG and PNG images may be used, but no server-side scripting or databases may be used. They’ll run all the entries through the W3C validator, and if it doesn’t make it through that, it doesn’t make it into the contest.
And the prizes don’t look half bad. Entries for the contents are due by October 31st, so get cracking! If you do send them an entry, let me know so I can see it, too.