User-Centered Interaction Paradigms for Universal Access in the Information Society

The 8th ERCIM Workshop “User Interfaces for All” was held in Vienna, Austria, on 28–29 June 2004, building upon the results of the seven previous workshops held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 30–31 October 1995; Prague, Czech Republic, 7–8 Nov- ber 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 concept of “User Interfaces for All” targets a proactive realization of the “- signforall”principleinthe?eldofhuman-computerinteraction(HCI),andinvolvesthe developmentof user interfaces to interactiveapplicationsand e-services, which provide universalaccess andusabilityto potentiallyall users. In thetraditionofits predecessors, 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 emphasis of the 2004 event was on “User-Centered Interaction Paradigms for Universal Access in the Information Society. ” The requirement for user-centered u- versal access stems from the growing impact of the fusion of the emerging techno- gies 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 diversi?cation of information, knowledge sources and e-services, the proliferation of technological platforms, etc.