DOC

Welcome to Lisbon and to the 26th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC) 2008. On behalf of the ACM SIGDOC 2008 Conference Committee, we would like to thank you for coming to ACM SIGDOC 2008, and we hope you will enjoy the conference technical and social programs.

ACM SIGDOC 2008 provides a leading international forum to bring together researchers and practitioners from diverse fields, such as Computer Science, Information Technology, Documentation, Human Computer Interaction, Multimedia, Graphic Design, Education, Human factors, etc to first, examine the design principles and performance characteristics of various approaches in Information Technology, and second, increase the cross-fertilization of ideas on the development of new ways of communicating information, taking into consideration local and global characteristics. By encouraging idea-sharing and discussions on the underlying logical, cognitive, and experimental foundations as well as the enabling technologies of communication, ACM SIGDOC 2008 will foster the development of novel paradigms and advanced solutions in design for communication.

The ACM SIGDOC conference takes place outside the United States for a second time and for a first time a non-English speaking country, Portugal, has the honour to host it. The Program Committee of the conference lists an impressive 37 members --- twenty three (23) from the USA, eleven (11) from Europe, one (1) from Africa, one (1) from South America, and one (1) from Australia.

The topics of ACM SIGDOC 2008 will cover the following: (1) Documentation and Design; (2) Usability; (3) Accessibility; (4) Evaluation and Experimentation; (5) DOC Modelling; (6) Information Design and Learning; (7) Information Systems and Architectures; (8) Version Control; (9) Aesthetics and Creativity and (10) Knowledge Management;

Continuing its strong presence among similar events, ACM SIGDOC 2008 managed to attract 74 submissions to the research and industry tracks from 13 countries and territories including: USA, Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Spain, France, UK, Denmark, Italy, Korea, Canada, Kuwait, and Sweden. Portuguese speaking countries are also well represented, with important number of participants from Brazil and Portugal, but also representatives from Mozambique and East Timor. The submissions include full-length papers, technical reports and for the first time, posters.

The submitted full-length papers, technical reports, and posters went through a rigorous reviewing process: Each of the 74 submissions was reviewed by at least two program committee members, and the borderline cases were re-reviewed by additional program committee members and by chair(s). Thirty three (33) full papers and technical papers were accepted along with eleven (11) posters.