NordiCHI 2000 — Keynote speakers

"If IT can't be used by all, we won't buy IT"

Short abstract
Private and public IT systems and services will increasingly be targeted to consumers and citizens at large. Usability and accessibility are key success factors for making them accepted and enjoyable by the widest possible range of end users. However, many IT systems and services will be based on standards and purchased "off the shelf" rather than being designed from the outset.

This presentation will focus on accessibility to meet the diversity of user capabilities, how to take this into account in standardisation and procurement, and how HCI researchers and practitioners could transfer their knowledge into the standardisation and procurement processes.

Biographies
Knut Nordby holds the degree Magister Artium (equivalent to Ph.D.) in experimental and cognitive psychology.  He has worked as research fellow and Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, doing basic research on total colour blindness. Fifteen years ago he joined the Norwegian Telecom Administration Research Institute (now Telenor R&D) working mainly on man-machine interaction, with special emphasis on developing equipment and services for older and disabled people.  He is now employed at Telenor R&D as Senior Research Scientist, devoting most of his time to international standardisation work in ETSI, CEN and ITU-T in the area of human factors and accessibility, especially for older and disabled people.  He is currently the Chairman of ETSI Technical Committee Human Factors (TC HF) and of the Permanent Steering Committee of the International Symposia Human Factors in Telecommunications (HFT).  He is visiting professor at UNIK, Department of Computer Science, University of Oslo, where he teaches man-machine interaction, human factors and HCI.

Clas Thorén has a long combined experience in the fields of Information Technology and accessibility for people with disabilities. He spent the 1980ís as manager of public procurements of IT products and systems. During the 1990ís, he was active in the field of accessibility of the information society, both as employed by the Nordic Committee on Disability and as an independent consultant. This includes participation in international projects on bringing the needs of consumers and people with disabilities into account by standardisation groups. He is the editor and main author of Nordic Guidelines for Computer Accessibility. He currently works for the Swedish Agency for Administrative Development (Statskontoret).