ASSETS

We are happy to welcome you to the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2016). The ASSETS conference is the premier computing research conference exploring the design, evaluation, and use of computing and information technologies to benefit people with disabilities and older adults. In our 18th year, the ASSETS conference will continue its tradition of presenting innovative research on mainstream and specialized assistive technologies, accessible computing, and assistive applications of computer, network, and information technologies.

For the main (technical paper) track of the conference, the call for papers attracted submissions from across the world: Austria (1), Brazil (7), Canada (4), China (1), Denmark (1), Ecuador (1), Finland (1), France (1), Germany (3), India (1), Japan (3), Mexico (1), New Zealand (1), Pakistan (1), Portugal (2), Singapore (2), the United Kingdom (8), and the United States (56). Overall, we received 95 submissions from which we selected 24 for inclusion in the program, for an acceptance rate of 25%. Acceptance decisions were made by consensus of the program committee nmembers, who discussed the papers online. The program committee consisted of 56 senior members of our research community who, along with 6 advanced doctoral students, produced a total of 288 reviews. We would like to thank them for their thorough reviews and thoughtful discussion and consideration of the submissions.

In addition to the main technical paper track of the conference, our program committee also reviewed 10 experience reports (4 accepted), 58 posters submissions (29 accepted), and 15 demo submissions (7 accepted). In addition, members of the program committee and other senior researchers helped to review submissions for the Student Research Competition and Doctoral Consortium events.

The ASSETS 2016 program is organized as follows:

• On Monday (Day 1), the program starts with a keynote presentation by Dr. Richard Ladner who is a professor from the University of Washington, and his keynote is entitled "Accessibility is Becoming Mainstream." Professor Ladner is the recipient of the 2016 SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contribution, an award that recognizes individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to the development of computing technologies that improve the accessibility of media and services to people with disabilities. Following the keynote, we will have a series of technical paper sessions organized around Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users, Users with Developmental Disabilities, and Tactile Information for Blind Users. The poster sessions during the day will feature poster and demo papers, along with Student Research Competition and SIGACCESS Travel Scholarship recipients. The day will end with a Reception at the conference hotel.

• On Tuesday (Day 2), the program will continue with sessions on Big Data and Blind Users, Rehabilitation and Clinical Technologies, and Communication and Aging. During the morning, we will also have a special session for the Text Entry Challenge, featuring research in the area of text-entry technologies; this session is in memory of Torsten Felzer, a researcher in our community who passed away earlier this year. We will also hear short talks from the finalists in the ACM Student Research Competition. The poster sessions on this day will include poster and demo papers, along with posters on the topic of text-entry and posters from our Doctoral Consortium participants. The day will conclude with a special reception at the National Automobile Museum.

• On Wednesday (Day 3), the program will conclude with technical sessions on Users with Visual Impairments, Haptic and Audio Feedback for Blind Users, Social Issues and Assistive Technology, and Accessibility Education. After announcing the Best Paper and Best Student Paper Awards at the closing session, we will then introduce next year's chairs to tell you about ASSETS 2017.