Special Issue for Universal Access in the Information Society Journal here.

A significant increase of the older population has led to various studies investigating the effect of age in utilizing the Web as an information resource. A report by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2001 stated that the estimated change in the total size of the world's elderly population between July 1999 and July 2000 was more than 9.5 million people, growing at an average of 795,000 people each month. This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Recent research shows that older adults are beginning to incorporate Web use in their daily activities, mainly because the Web presents an opportunity for them to maintain a high quality of life. As a consequence, a variety of new opportunities and challenges related to the use of the Web by older adults arise in a Universal Access perspective.

The main objective of this special issue is to bring together work by researchers, academics and practitioners from various disciplines who are interested in the interrelationships among web access, web usability and ageing. Contributions on novel methodologies, theories, products and design guidelines that address these issues, as well as on related case studies, are solicited.

Main topics

Authors of submissions should carefully explain how the work and results presented contribute to facilitating and promoting universal access.

Contributions are solicited in, but not limited to, the following topics:

· Information architecture and the older user.
· Ageing-related disabilities and accessible design of web technology.
· Empirical studies on web usability and older users.
· Analytical studies & computational modeling of the older web user.
· Social aspects of web and aging, including the effects of web use on personal well-being, as well as social determinants of successful web use (e.g. educational attainment, socio-economic status, etc.)
· Emerging applications and interaction techniques with high relevance for older web users (e.g., WAP)
· Social policy implications of web access for older users, especially including issues of public access to computing facilities, access to government services, and social/civic engagement.
· Web-based learning and training for the elderly.

The call for papers and any updates about this special issue can be
found here.