CUU 2000 > Proceedings November 16-17, 2000, Arlington, VA, USA Proceedings: Technical Program Welcome

The goal of the Conference on Universal Usability is to bring together diverse communities of users and researchers to discuss universal access to the digital world. We believe that there are sound and compelling social and economic reasons for widening access to everyone who wishes it. In addition, however, there are also sound and compelling scientific and technical reasons.

The consideration of people with different or unusual circumstances, capabilities, cultures, languages, and backgrounds forces the scientist and the designer to look at the world in a new light. If necessity is the mother of invention, then diverse and multiple necessities might well lead to diverse and multiple inventions. In the papers, panels, posters, and invited talks in this conference, the attendees and readers can see this trend in the novelty of ideas, approaches, and solutions. Congratulations to the inventiveness of our contributors!

It is extremely rewarding to start a new conference and yet receive a large volume of submissions. The papers in this proceedings were selected from well over six dozen submissions. They include novel general methods and approaches for universal design as well as very specific case studies aimed at solving particular problems. They include innovations in architecture, methodology, software, hardware, and even attitude. The range of users and circumstances that the authors consider is wide indeed, encompassing the people of various ages, languages, cultures, abilities, and values.

Reviewing for a new conference is a challenge. Reviewers have no body of accepted papers specifically geared toward this conference upon which to base judgments, comparisons, and advice. The criteria for paper acceptance for CUU were difficult to define and we requested reviewers from an already busy community. We thank all our volunteer reviewers and meta reviewers for their timely and insightful reviews.

We also thank Ben Shneiderman for his perseverance in making this conference a reality as well as his life-long pursuit of making technology serve people instead of the other way around.

Jean Scholtz and John C Thomas, CUU 2000 Technical Program co-Chairs