UniversalUsability.org

The 2nd ACM Conference on Universal Usability is seeking Doctoral Consortium applicants, and extended abstracts on late breaking research in Universal Usability. The conference will be held in downtown Vancouver, Canada from November 10 –11, 2003. See http://sigchi.org/cuu2003/ for conference details. Special rates for early conference registration are available until October 13, 2003.

The CUU 2003 Doctoral Consortium provides an ideal opportunity for doctoral students to explore their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of a panel of distinguished research faculty. The Consortium will be held on Sunday November 9, 2004. Ten (10) students will be invited to attend and discuss each student's work in turn. Student participants will have a poster of their work exhibited at the main conference. Students will receive complimentary conference registration, and reimbursement of travel, accommodation and food. The deadline for submission is Monday September 22, 2003, 5:00 p.m. (1700) Pacific Standard Time.

The Second Conference on Universal Usability is seeking extended abstracts on late breaking research in Universal Usability. We are particularly looking for papers from the social science, economics, communications and sociology community in order to build bridges between researchers in these disciplines and interface designers.

The CUU conference is focused on understanding and guiding those elements of human-computer interface design that affect the ability of a universal collection of people to effectively use and gain benefit from computer applications. Thus, the conference accepts papers in universal accessibility such as interface designs that support screen readers for the blind, but it is also keenly interested in the social nature of accessibility. For example, CUU would like to attract research from those individuals working on the digital divide, in particular, details on the ways in which different socio-economic groups find it difficult to have access to computers and to the Internet. Computers are currently designed for the western knowledge worker with an assumption of infrastructures that support complex exchanges and a robust power supply. A cultural and cost-based redesign has the potential of bridging the digital divide. Thus, research on the nature, extent and characteristics of this gap are solicited. The conference is also interested in research on how different groups respond affectively to various interfaces and how specific applications leave users disturbed about potential invasions of privacy or control – enough so that usage is avoided or limited. A key belief in hosting this conference is that software and computers are cultural objects that have embodied in their design a set of features that clearly state “who” the software and computers are designed for. The focus of the conference is thus, to develop an understanding of how to create these cultural objects so that they speak to a universal audience.

Suggested topics for universal usability abstracts include the following:

1. Digital divide issues in Africa, Indonesia, Poor America, etc.
2. Affective or Emotional Computing
3. Designing interfaces for multiple languages and cultures
4. Trust issues in networked applications
5. Computer training for the computer illiterate
6. Gender differences in responses to computerization, e.g., the automobile

Prepare a two-page extended abstract of your research in the ACM Conference Publications Format, including: title, author information, abstract, keywords, research summary, and references. E-mail this abstract in PDF format to cuu2003-lbr@universalusability.org by the deadline of Monday, September 22, 2003, 5:00 pm (1700) Pacific Standard Time (PST). Accepted abstracts will be available as part of the Proceedings on the conference website. They will not be published in the print Proceedings. At least one author from each accepted abstracts will be required to present the paper at the conference in November. Presenting authors must register for the conference.

See the call for extended abstracts for more information.

Shari Trewin
CUU2003 Publicity Chair