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8th ERCIM Workshop "User Interfaces for All"
by Constantine Stephanidis
The 8th ERCIM Workshop 'User Interfaces for All' was held in Vienna, Austria, 28-29 June 2004, and Prof. Chris Stary, University of Linz, was the Programme Chair and local organiser. The workshop built on the results of the seven previous workshops.
In the tradition of its predecessors (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, 24-25 October 2002), the 8th ERCIM Workshop 'User Interfaces for All' aimed 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 upcoming Information Society. The special theme of this year’s workshop was 'User-Centred Interaction Paradigms for Universal Access in the Information Society'. The requirement for User-Centred Universal Access stems from the growing impact of the fusion of the emerging technologies and from the different dimensions of diversity that are intrinsic to the Information Society. These dimensions become evident when considering the broad range of user characteristics, the changing nature of human activities, the variety of contexts of use, the increasing availability and diversification of information, knowledge sources and e-services, the proliferation of technological platforms, etc. The 8th ERCIM Workshop 'User Interfaces for All' focused on the new HCI challenges arising from this evolution, and on how these affect the continuing efforts towards Universal Access in the Information Society.
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| Photo taken during the workshop. Standing: Ben Shneiderman (first keynote speaker), Simone Stoiber (workshop assistant organiser), Constantine Stephanidis (Working Group chair) and Christian Stary (workshop organiser). Sitting: Noelle Carbonell (Workshop PC member) and Jennifer Preece (second keynote speaker). |
Keynote speakers were Prof. Ben Shneiderman (University of Maryland, Maryland, USA), who presented 'Interface Design Strategies to Promote Learnability for All', and Prof. Jenny Preece (University of Maryland Baltimore County, Maryland, USA), who talked about 'Online Communities for All'.
The workshop attracted the strongest ever interest with over 140 submissions from all over the world, covering a wide range of topics that include novel interaction paradigms and contexts of use, innovative concepts of universal accessibility and sociability, new modalities and dialogue styles, user-centered design in mobile application scenarios, late-breaking empirical results with respect to assessing universally accessible applications, and standardization efforts. Contributions addressed not only technological solutions, but also design paradigms and empirical methods for evaluation, as well as policy developments.
The official Workshop Proceedings (http://www.ui4all.gr/workshop2004/publications/lncs3196-toc.html) will be published by Springer as part of LNCS (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) series, in the subline 'State-of-the-Art Surveys', and will be embedded in the LNCS digital library. The workshop adjunct proceedings are electronically available in PDF format at http://www.ui4all.gr/workshop2004/publications/adjunct-proceedings.html.
From the year 2001 onwards, the ERCIM Workshop 'User Interfaces for All' takes place every two years, in alternation with the newly established 'Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction' (UAHCI) Conference, also held every two years in the context HCI International and affiliated conferences. In 2005, the 3rd UAHCI Conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 22-27 July (http://www.hci-international.org/).
Links:
8th ERCIM Workshop 'User Interfaces for All': http://www.ui4all.gr/workshop2004/
ERCIM Working Group 'User Interfaces for All': http://www.ui4all.gr
Please contact:
Constantine Stephanidis,
ICS-FORTH, Greece
Tel: +30 2810 391741
E-mail: cs ics.forth.gr
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