- From: DavidSloan <DSloan@computing.dundee.ac.uk>
- Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:50:26 -0000
- To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
*FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS* The Sixth International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A 2009) 'Web Accessibility for Older Users: Are We There Yet?' Co-Located with the Eighteenth International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2009), in Madrid, Spain, 20-21 April 2009. Confirmed Keynote Speakers -------------------------- * Michael Paciello (The Paciello Group) Important Date ------------------- * SUBMISSIONS: TECHNICAL and COMMUNICATION Papers and WEB ACCESSIBILITY CHALLENGE: 30th Jan 2009 (Midnight Hawaii Standard Time) More details: http://www.w4a.info/2009/dates.shtml Publications ------------------- * The conference proceedings will be published as part of the ACM International Conference Proceedings Series and will be available at the ACM Digital Library. Topics and Content ------------------- Population demographics indicate that our populations are ageing across the board. As the population ages the financial requirement to work longer is increased, but the ability to work longer is reduced because disability becomes a bar to employment. With the growth of the knowledge economy, and a move from manual work to more thought and communication based activities, there is the very real possibility of older Web users being able to finding productive, fulfilling, and social empowering employment; if only technology, and specifically the Web, where available to them. An ageing but Web-literate population indicates a large market for online shopping and services especially when mobility is a problem for the shopper. In this case we wonder how this new population we interact with Web based resources, and what new problems in accessibility will there be to overcome? Will the Web provide the social, employment, and health care benefits currently unavailable to older users? Will complex and highly graphical interfaces excluded ageing users from access? How do the adaption patterns for Web access by older people vary across cultures? What problems exist, what are the upcoming problems, what solutions are required? Finally, what effect will an ageing user population have on the wider Web? We pose the question: Web accessibility for older users - are we there yet? Submission -------------------- We will accept position and technical papers, and short communications. Position papers should only be submitted as a communication of (up to 4-pages) whereas technical papers should be in full paper format (upto 10-pages). Accepted papers and communications will appear in the Conference proceedings contained on the Conference CD, and will also be accessible to the general public via the ACM Digital Library website. The official language of the Conference is English. Submission details are available at: http://www.w4a.info/2009/submissions.shtml Web Accessibility Challenge ------------------- Sponsored by Microsoft since 2008, the "Web Accessibility Challenge" is organised to give an opportunity to researchers and developers of advanced Web accessibility technologies for showcasing their technologies to technical leaders in this area not only from academia and industry but also from end-users. More details: http://www.w4a.info/2009/challenge.shtml Sponsors ------------------- Microsoft Corporation (http://www.microsoft.com) Google (http://www.google.com) The Mozilla Foundation (http://www.mozillafoundation.org/) ACM's Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing (SIGACCESS) (http://www.acm.org/sigaccess/) Zakon Group (http://www.zakongroup.com/) Endorsement ------------------- W4A 2009 is endorsed by the International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee (IW3C2) General Chair ------------------- David Sloan School of Computing, University of Dundee, DUNDEE UK Email: gc-2009-at-w4a.info Programme Chairs ------------------- Hiro Takagi and Chieko Asakawa Accessibility Research, Tokyo Research Laboratory, IBM Research, TOKYO Japan Email: pc-2009@w4a.info W4A on the Web ------------------- * http://www.w4a.info * http://www.w4a.info/updates.xml (RSS/ATOM News Feed) The University of Dundee is a Scottish Registered Charity, No. SC015096.
Received on Friday, 31 October 2008 11:57:22 UTC