Engineering the User Interface : From Research to Practice

Digital Divide (DD) is a term that defines the division between people, commu- ties, states, countries, etc. with respect to the access to the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Nowadays, it is essential to have tech- logical skills to work in a variety of jobs (i. e. administration, education, etc. ). Moreover, ICTs have become ubiquitous and they affect almost every aspect of our daily life. The way in which people face the task of using ICTs varies depending on a plethora of variables. The most analysed ones are the technological literacy and the educational level. These are two very important factors that strongly affect the success of the individuals in accessing ICTs. Unfortunately, these are not the only variables to consider. Some people suffer from mental and physical disabilities that are real impediments to access ICTs, and they must be studied in detail. How can we help disabled people to access ICTs? Can public telecentres deal with this task? Can the ICTs be used to improve the accessibility of disabled people? Which projects aim to reduce the digital divide? Are they addressed to disabled people? These are some of the questions that we will try to answer, at least partially, in this chapter. We believe that governments must invest to avert the DD, but they are not the only actors involved in this scenario.

This book contains a selection of sixteen high-quality papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Interacción Persona-Ordenador (IPO), which stands for Human-Computer Interaction in Spanish and was called Interacción’2006 for short). This conference took place in Puertollano (Ciudad Real, Spain) on November 13th-17th, 2006, and was organized by the CHICO research group from the Universidad de Castilla – La Mancha (Spain). In its seventh edition this conference has become a multidisciplinary forum for the discussion and dissemination of novel research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

The main goals of Interacción’2006 were threefold: to spread innovative research and promote discussion on HCI; to put in contact research groups from all over the world, mainly Spanish-speaking groups and the most authoritative researchers in the field; and to enrich the relationship between academia and industry in all the topics related to HCI.

This volume is organized according to the main areas of both basic and applied research that were presented at the conference: Ergonomics and Human Factors, Usability and Accessibility, Ambient Intelligence and Context-aware Systems, User-Centred Design, Systems and Models for Collaborative Work, HCI in e-Learning, User Interface Design and Development, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Multi-modal Interaction, Ubiquitous Computing Devices and Applications, HCI for People with Special Needs.

The primary audience of this book includes, but it is not limited to, researchers and practitioners in HCI, developers and users of HCI systems, and institutions involved in the development and standardization of HCI technologies.