Workshop on Universal Usability
Friday, June 2, 2006
College Park, Maryland, USA

The Universal Usability workshop is part of the Unversity of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab's 2006 Symposium and Open House. Jonathan Lazar, author of Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach, and Sarah Horton, author of Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers, will lead the workshop.

Workshop description:
Many governmental initiatives focus on providing universal access to technology for diverse user populations, but having access to technology doesn't help if the interfaces are hard to use. Universal usability is the study of making interfaces easy to use for all users, including young users, older users, economically disadvantaged users, and users with perceptual, motor, and cognitive impairments. Our goal for this workshop is to explore current trends in design and technology that help or hinder the development of universally usable interfaces. Specific topics that we hope to address in this workshop include:

* Collaborative design: Designing user interfaces that can be adapted by the user
* Design methodology: Incorporating universal usability into the development process
* Tools: Software and guidelines for achieving universal usability
* Technologies: How technologies such as web applications and mobile devices affect universal usability
* Policies: Government policy related to universal usability

Each workshop participant will be expected to make a short 5-10 minute presentation. To participate in this workshop, please send a one-page position paper to Sarah Horton, [log in to unmask], by May 1st.

More information about the Human-Computer Interaction Lab Symposium and Open House is available at http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/soh/index.shtml.


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