What is it?

This is an event that will bring together international experts on Web accessibility and usability to talk about accessibility, usability and Web standards. The experts' point of view will be the starting point of a discussion on the necessity to develop accessible and usable Web sites.

Where and when?

The main event will be held on November 22 - 23, 2005, at Centro Municipal Gijón-Sur, in Gijón, Asturias, Spain. The 24th of November an additional event will take place to offer a tutorial on XHTML2/XForms, at Escuela Universitaria de Ingeniería Técnica Informática, in Oviedo, Asturias, Spain.

Who is it for?

Business, organizations and institutions interested in Web accessibility and usability, and also project managers and Web developers interested in improving the user experience through a Web design focused on accessibility and usability.

Why?

The Web plays an important role in the education, business, economic, politics and social fields as a way to obtain information. This is the reason why an accessible and usable design of Web sites is essential for equal opportunities to access information. Nowadays, to ensure universal access to information regardless of hardware, software, network infrastructure, language, culture, and user capabilities, is a challenge.

Currently, a large number of people have permanent or temporary disabilities, or are under circumstances that make it difficult to access the information on the Web; for this reason, accessibility and usability should be the foundations of Web design.

How?

The main event will last two days; the first day will be on Accessibility and the second day on Usability and Standards. Each day, in the morning session, there will be three invited speakers of international recognition. In the afternoon, there will be a panel where the speakers from the morning session, together with three national experts in the area, will discuss on accessibility and usability.

An additional event will take place to offer a tutorial on new generation of Web pages and Web forms, XHTML2 and XForms.

Simultaneous translation will be offered for the main event (November 22-23). The tutorial to be held on November 24, will be in English.