ERCIM Workshop on User Interfaces for All

by Constantine Stephanidis

An ERCIM Workshop on "Towards User Interfaces for All: Current efforts and future trends" took place at ICS-FORTH, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 30-31 October 1995. This Workshop has been organised against the background of recent European R&D activities which have analysed the requirements, identified the viability, and demonstrated the feasibility of constructing "User interfaces for all", i.e. interfaces which address the individual user requirements of potentially all users.

The Workshop was the first milestone towards setting up a longer term activity within ERCIM in the form of a Working Group, thus addressing the expressed interest of many Senior ERCIM Researchers working in the field. Following approval by the ERCIM Executive Committee, the Workshop has been organised in a very short time, bringing together researchers working until now in a separate context. Interest was registered not only from across Europe, but also from USA, Canada, Japan, and China. 15 paper submissions were accepted as long papers, and 3 as short papers. The Workshop also featured one invited speaker and 25 registered participants.

Prof. Stelios Orphanoudakis, Director of ICS-FORTH, and Constantine Stephanidis, Organising and Programme Committee Chair welcomed the participants. The papers presented at the Workshop were:

• Towards interfaces for all users: Current European R&D activities, P.L. Emiliani [CNR, Italy]
• A framework for Global Software, A. Lehtola, T. Honkela [VTT, Finland]
• Design representations and Development support for User Interface Adaptation, C. Stephanidis, D. Akoumianakis, A. Savidis [ICS-FORTH, Greece]
• Supporting information Consumers by Search Agents in the WWW, C. Thomas, R. Oppermann [GMD, Germany]
• Navigating Information Space, D. Benyon [Open University, United Kingdom]
• Building adaptive applications on widely-used platforms with BGP-MS, W. Pohl, J. Hoehle [University of Essen, Germany], J. Fink [GMD, Germany], D-W Kim [University of Regensburg, Germany]
• Investigating on-line message generation in software applications: The GLOSSASOFT results, C. Spyropoulos, E. Karkaletsis, G. Vouros [NCSR DEMOKRITOS, Greece], T. Honkela, K. Lagus, A. Lehtola [VTT, Finland]
• Algebraic specification of User Interfaces, M. Cabrera, M. Gea, F. Gutierrez, J.C. Torres [University of Granada, Spain]
• Learning and Problem Solving as an iterative process: Learner's living repository: LEAR, R. Oppermann, C. Thomas [GMD, Germany]
• Multimodality from the User and System Perspectives, J. Coutaz, L. Nigay, D. Salber [CLIPS-IMAG, France]
• The Info-Agent: an Interface for supporting Users in Intelligent Retrieval, D. DΔ Aloisi, V. Giannini [Ugo Bordoni Foundation, Italy]
• Integration of User Interface and Conceptual Modeling, B. Farshchian, J. Krogstie, A. Solvberg [Norwegian Institute of Technology, Norway]
• Supporting Adaptivity in Intelligent User Interfaces: The case of Media and Modalities Allocation, C. Karagiannidis, A. Koumpis, C. Stephanidis [ICS- FORTH, Greece]
• Syndetic Models and Gestural Interaction, G. Faconti, A. Fornari [CNR- CNUCE, Italy]
• Active Interfaces through Software Agents, A. Cesta [CNR, Italy], D. DΔ Aloisi [Ugo Bordoni Foundation, Italy]
• "Calling the blind" is "Watched by the Deaf": Directions for Multimodal CSCW-Adaptations to Receptive Disabilities, M. Pieper [GMD, Germany]
• What does "User Interface for All" mean? Some Preliminary Considerations, P. Venerosi [CNR, Italy]
• An approach to facilitate the T.O. of a vehicle in the space 3D, D. Bonyuet [Polytechnical University of Catalonia, Spain]
• Modality Abstraction: Capturing Logical Interaction Design as Abstraction from "User Interfaces for All", H.-W. Gellersen [University of Karlsruhe, Germany]

the proceedings of the workshop will be available shortly electronically via the ERCIM web site. For further information please contact the author at the adress given below.

On the 1st of November 1995, an open meeting of the ERCIM Workshop Programme Committee was held, in the context of the new ERCIM Working Group. A series of activities was discussed and planed, aimed at bringing closer together researchers and teams working in the different ERCIM organisations (but also beyond the ERCIM or European boundaries), who share common interests and aspirations, and would like to contribute to the endeavours towards making the "Information Society" equally accessible to all.