Recent trends in emerging information technologies provide strong indications that industry is supporting the development of architectures, interfaces, applications and standards that feature accessibility for people with disabilities. Where is this all leading too? Perhaps to the development of an accessible information technology infrastructure that features direct and pervasive accessibility for all people, particularly people with disabilities. The Internet and World Wide Web serving as the foundation stones for this development.

Today, the fundamental weakness of personal assistive technology can be directly attributed to two problems:

1. Emerging technology grows at faster rates and more powerfully than personal assistive technology.
2. Personal assistive technology adapts and reacts to emerging technology after the technology has reached broad usage.

This panel will focus on the feasibility of designing and developing a pervasive accessible information technology that can accommodate users with special characteristics (disabilities). We will discuss whether it is possible to develop an architecture that features an interface that thrives on pervasive accessibility; that is, it adapts to the needs of the user, regardless of the users ability. It is a user-centered interface recently alluded to by Don Norman as, "a technology that serves the user, where technology fits the task and the complexity is that of the task, not the tool." (The Invisible Computer, by Donald Norman)