Technologies that people use today are quite often difficult to use and do not fit to our way of doing things. We have to learn many types of user interfaces, new paradigms and tools, and understand many logical schemes before we are able to use technology. As humans we have different aims and goals, culture, habits, skills and knowledge. We can ask, what is human centered technology? Different users see and experience technology differently. Technology should also be adaptable. It should adapt to the user skills and level of knowledge and to the way the user uses the technology. When discovering new ways to use technologies, developers should always bear in mind the determinants of different users. From global perspective people are using more and more technology. Technology should be functional in different cultures, in different age groups and overall in different contexts.

Technology should be considered as a tool that helps and simplifies normal human everyday processes. The whole usage context including the factors relating to the user, should define the characteristics of the technological solutions. The use of technology is not a value itself. The most important value in new technologies is the fact that user is able to accomplish his/her tasks effectively. Too often the design of technologies is dictated by the technologies themselves. Human centered technology can be understood as being technology that supports human actions in various usage contexts.

We invite researchers, designers and developers from the engineering sciences, cultural, social and educational sciences, and psychology to send in abstracts. The papers should answer to at least one of the following questions:
• What is human centered technology?
• How do we get knowledge from the humans as the users of the technology?
• What are the challenges of human centered technology from the point of view of different disciplines?

Official language of the workshop is English.

The conference is sponsored by Finnish Work Environment fund and University of Helsinki, CICERO Learning Network.