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About Overview Areas of Interest Proposals Programme Submissions Publications Programme Committee General Information Contact Details Workshops Home	Overview The 8th ERCIM Workshop "User Interfaces for All" builds upon the results of the seven previous Workshops held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 30-31 October 1995; Prague, Czech Republic, 7-8 November 1996; Obernai, France, 3-4 November 1997; Stockholm, Sweden, 19-21 October 1998; Dagstuhl, Germany, 28 November - 1 December 1999; Florence, Italy, 25-26 October 2000; and Paris (Chantilly), France, 23-25 October, 2002. The vision of User Interfaces for All advocates the proactive realisation of the "design for all" principle in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and involves the development of user interfaces to interactive applications and telematic services, which provide universal access and usability to potentially all users. In the tradition of its predecessors, this Workshop aims to consolidate recent work, and to stimulate further discussion, on the state of the art in User Interfaces for All, and its increasing range of applications in the emerging Information Society. The emphasis of this year's event is on "User-Centred Interaction Paradigms for Universal Access in the Information Society", and invites contributions on a broad range of topics, including technological, applications and policy developments aiming to advance the notion of an Information Society accessible and acceptable by the widest possible end user population. As a result of the increasing demand for ubiquitous and continuous access to information and services, Information Society Technologies are anticipated to evolve in the current decade towards a new paradigm, characterised by computing and networking technologies present everywhere and embedded in everyday objects, which are interconnected in a web-like structure and form a virtual all-encompassing computing platform. Such a platform is composed of multiple distributed processing and interactive units, is capable of monitoring the user and can exhibit different degrees of intelligence. This paradigm-shift will have profound consequences on the type, content and functionality of the emerging products and services, as well as on the way people will interact with them. The 8th ERCIM Workshop "User Interfaces for All" will therefore focus on the new HCI challenges arising from this evolution, and on how these will affect the continuing efforts towards Universal Access in the Information Society. Scientific / technological contributions should be on concepts and tools that advance the understanding of, and contribute towards, Universal Access to the new computer-mediated virtual spaces. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, future and emerging technologies, novel computing paradigms, computer-mediated virtual spaces, architectures and tools, interaction platforms, interaction metaphors, experimental or empirical studies, etc., which bear an impact on the scope of human access to digital content in an Information Society. Application-oriented contributions may address practice and experience in the application of Universal Access principles in critical domains such as health, education, employment, etc. In this context, this year's Workshop encourages contributions that elaborate upon, adopt, apply or validate a Universal Access code of practice in selected application domains. Design-oriented contributions should focus on the development and the application of principles of user-centred design in the course of universally accessible software development. Of particular interest are contributions that describe and reflect successful design cases. They should indicate the progressive development of established user-centred design techniques towards handling diversity with respect to user, as well as functional requirements. Finally, contributions on policy developments should discuss the impact of non-technological factors, such as legislation, standardisation, technology transfer, etc., on developing a culture for Universal Access in the Information Society, for all parties concerned and in particular the industry. Policy contributions may cover success stories of the past or identify obstacles to be addressed by effective policy interventions.

Overview

The 8th ERCIM Workshop "User Interfaces for All" builds upon the results of the seven previous Workshops held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 30-31 October 1995; Prague, Czech Republic, 7-8 November 1996; Obernai, France, 3-4 November 1997; Stockholm, Sweden, 19-21 October 1998; Dagstuhl, Germany, 28 November - 1 December 1999; Florence, Italy, 25-26 October 2000; and Paris (Chantilly), France, 23-25 October, 2002.

The vision of User Interfaces for All advocates the proactive realisation of the "design for all" principle in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and involves the development of user interfaces to interactive applications and telematic services, which provide universal access and usability to potentially all users.

In the tradition of its predecessors, this Workshop aims to consolidate recent work, and to stimulate further discussion, on the state of the art in User Interfaces for All, and its increasing range of applications in the emerging Information Society. The emphasis of this year's event is on "User-Centred Interaction Paradigms for Universal Access in the Information Society", and invites contributions on a broad range of topics, including technological, applications and policy developments aiming to advance the notion of an Information Society accessible and acceptable by the widest possible end user population.

As a result of the increasing demand for ubiquitous and continuous access to information and services, Information Society Technologies are anticipated to evolve in the current decade towards a new paradigm, characterised by computing and networking technologies present everywhere and embedded in everyday objects, which are interconnected in a web-like structure and form a virtual all-encompassing computing platform. Such a platform is composed of multiple distributed processing and interactive units, is capable of monitoring the user and can exhibit different degrees of intelligence. This paradigm-shift will have profound consequences on the type, content and functionality of the emerging products and services, as well as on the way people will interact with them. The 8th ERCIM Workshop "User Interfaces for All" will therefore focus on the new HCI challenges arising from this evolution, and on how these will affect the continuing efforts towards Universal Access in the Information Society.

Scientific / technological contributions should be on concepts and tools that advance the understanding of, and contribute towards, Universal Access to the new computer-mediated virtual spaces. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, future and emerging technologies, novel computing paradigms, computer-mediated virtual spaces, architectures and tools, interaction platforms, interaction metaphors, experimental or empirical studies, etc., which bear an impact on the scope of human access to digital content in an Information Society.

Application-oriented contributions may address practice and experience in the application of Universal Access principles in critical domains such as health, education, employment, etc. In this context, this year's Workshop encourages contributions that elaborate upon, adopt, apply or validate a Universal Access code of practice in selected application domains.

Design-oriented contributions should focus on the development and the application of principles of user-centred design in the course of universally accessible software development. Of particular interest are contributions that describe and reflect successful design cases. They should indicate the progressive development of established user-centred design techniques towards handling diversity with respect to user, as well as functional requirements.

Finally, contributions on policy developments should discuss the impact of non-technological factors, such as legislation, standardisation, technology transfer, etc., on developing a culture for Universal Access in the Information Society, for all parties concerned and in particular the industry. Policy contributions may cover success stories of the past or identify obstacles to be addressed by effective policy interventions.