Toward an Information Society for All: HCI Challenges and R&D Recommendations

Abstract

This article reports on the results of the second meeting and workshop of the International Scientific Forum, "Towards an Information Society for All," that took place in Crete, Greece, June 15-16, 1998. In particular, it elaborates on the international research and development agenda (Stephanidis et al., 1998), which resulted from the first meeting and workshop of the Forum in San Francisco, California, on August 29, 1997, in the context of the HCI International '97 Conference. This article elaborates on the proposed research and development agenda by identifying human-computer interaction challenges and clusters of concrete recommendations for international collaborative research and technological development (RTD) activities. Four clusters of recommendations are proposed. The first three facilitate reaching technological targets, and the fourth comprises accompanying measures. The three technological clusters concern the corresponding transitions from (a) productivity tools to environments of use, (b) individual users to communities of users, and (c) computer-assisted business tasks to computer-mediated human activities. The fourth cluster covers support (horizontal) actions needed to establish a favorable environment for the creation of an information society acceptable to all citizens. Each cluster is elaborated by means of specific recommendations, plausible RTD objectives, and likely or expected outcomes.