Industrialized countries are faced with severe demographical and social changes. Consequently, areas including Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) are of increasing importance. The vision of AAL is to provide technologies for supporting (elderly) people in their daily lives, allowing them to stay longer within their own home aiming at living independent and self-determined. User Interfaces in such systems are mostly multimodal, because standard interfaces have limited accessibility. Multimodal user interfaces combine various input and output modalities (including seeing/vision, hearing/audition, haptic/tactile, taste/gustation, smell/olfaction etc) which are a classical research area in human-computer interaction. One of the advantages of multiple modalities is increased usability: the weaknesses of one modality are offset by the strengths of another. For example, on a mobile device with a small visual interface and keypad, a word may be quite difficult to read/type, however very easy to say/listen. Such interfaces in combination with mobile technologies can have tremendous implications for accessibility and can be a benefit for people. An important issue is that all those interfaces must be accessible, useful and usable. Traditionally, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) bridges Psychology and Informatics, while Usability Engineering (UE) is anchored in software technology and must guarantee a solid technological implementation, for example by application of formal methods. Together, HCI&UE provide the emerging potential to assist the daily workflows in the realm of AAL. To promote a closer collaboration between Psychologists and Computer Scientists, we invite your participation in this special thematic session.

Topics include (but are not limited to):

• Formal Methods and Methodologies (incl. Agile Methods)
• Human Aspects of Future Technologies
• Ambient Assisted Living and Life Long Learning
• Mobile and Pervasive Computing
• Adaptivity and Adaptation
• Multimodal Integration Techniques
• Intelligent UIs for Elderly
• User Centered Design & Development
• Real-Life Usability Testing
• Cognitive Task Analysis
• Older Adults Acceptance of Computer Technology
• Innovative Mixed and Augmented Interfaces