"Our society is shifting its main focus to information and communication; just as it not so long ago shifted attention from food to machines and industrial production. The available knowledge and information is expanding enormously. Its importance in society is booming. In this situation we find a great need for effective means for people to cope with and make good use of the overwhelming new riches of information. We also find a growing need to smoothly combine and shift between interacting with information, interacting with physical objects, and interacting with people face-to-face. Only by integrating the information world with the physical and social world, will we be able to reach a new level of information technology use in which new products and services improve the quality of life by saving time, increasing our freedom and control of action, giving enjoyment and satisfaction. Umeå Center for Interaction Technology (UCIT) is designed to meet this challenge. It is a research platform for multidisciplinary research grounded on interaction technology and centered on its use from a human perspective. UCIT builds on a concept of interaction that brings forward the importance of the interconnections and interdependencies between the three basic categories of humans, information (captured in various media), and (material) objects, and the benefit of considering them in their entirety."