2nd ERCIM Workshop on User Interfaces for All

by Constantine Stephanidis

The 2nd ERCIM Workshop on 'User Interfaces for All' took place at Prague, Czech Republic, 7-8 November 1996. At the core of the vision of User Interfaces for All is a mix of existing and emerging technologies, which are likely to predominate the life cycle of future user interfaces to a wide range of applications and telematic services; these interfaces must be both accessible and provide high quality interaction to potentially all users, so as to be usable by a diverse user population, including people with different cultural, educational, training and employment background, novice and experienced computer users, the very young and the elderly, and people with different types of disabilities, in various interaction contexts and scenarios of use.

This Workshop built upon the results of the 1st Workshop held at ICS-FORTH, Crete, Greece, 30-31 October 1995, and aimed to stimulate further discussion on the state of the art in the field of Human-Computer Interaction and to consolidate recent work in the areas of user interface adaptation (adaptability and adaptivity), platform independence, multimodality, interoperability, interaction metaphors and metaphor fusion, user empowerment, ergonomic and human factors guidelines, etc.

Six paper submissions were accepted as long papers, and one as a short paper. Also, four position papers were presented, addressing timely topics of potential future collaboration in the framework of European Collaborative R&D Programmes.

The papers presented at the Workshop were:

• Agent Classes for Managing Dialogue Control Specification Complexity, by A. Savidis and C. Stephanidis (ICS-FORTH, Greece)
• PIM: a Tool for Building Programming Layers on Top of Toolkits, by A. Savidis and C. Stephanidis (ICS-FORTH, Greece)
• BSCW for Disabled Teleworkers: Usability Evaluation and Interfaces - Adaptation of an Internet-Based Cooperation Environment, by M. Pieper, H. Gappa (GMD, Germany) and D. Hermsdorf (Louisiana State University, USA)
• Semi-Automatic Design and Prototyping of Adaptive User Interfaces, by M. Martins (University of Minho, Portugal)
• Synchronisation and Delay in a Formal Model of User Cognition, by D. Duke (University of York, UK), G. Faconti and M. Massink (CNR, Italy)
• Guiding User Interfaces Equationally, by T.B. Dinesh (CWI, Netherlands)
• Considering the User in Mixed-Initiative Meeting Management, by A. Cesta (CNR, Italy), D. De Aloisi and R. Brancaleoni (FUB, Italy)
• User Modelling for Information Retrieval from Multidatabases, by L. Mackinnon (Herriot-Watt University, UK) and M. Wilson (CRLC, UK)
• Quality of Service for Information Access, by M. Prime and M. Wilson (CLRC, UK)
• ERCIM collaborative interaction design toolset, by C. Stephanidis and D. Akoumianakis (ICS-FORTH, Greece)
• Interaction in an ERCIM Virtual Laboratory, by C. Stephanidis and D. Akoumianakis (ICS-FORTH, Greece)

On the 9th of November 1996, the meetings of the Workshop Programme Committee and the ERCIM Working Group took place in the same location in Prague. 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. Specific collaborative R&D activities and project proposals have been initiated.

The Proceedings of the Workshop will be available at the beginning of 1997 electronically via the Web site of the ERCIM Working Group on User Interfaces for All at:

http://www.ics.forth.gr/ICS_home/UI4ALL/ui4all.html

Please contact:
Constantine Stephanidis - FORTH
Tel: +30 81 391741
E-mail: cs@ics.forth.gr