In recent years, a significant increase of the older population has led to various studies investigating the effect of age in utilizing the Web as an information resource. Research shows that older adults are beginning to incorporate Web use in their daily activities, mainly because the Web presents an opportunity for them to maintain a high quality of life. As a consequence, a variety of new opportunities and challenges for facilitating Universal Access arise in the context of Web uses by older adults. This special issue brings together work by researchers, academics and practitioners from various disciplines who are interested in the inter relationships among web access, web usability and ageing. This special issue is the outcome of an open electronic call that was addressed to the HCI research community at large in January–June 2004. Seven submissions out of 11 were selected on the basis of thorough peer review. The selection of articles presented here addresses major issues in the challenges and opportunities of the use of the Web by older adults, mainly focussing on novel methodologies, theories, products and design guidelines that address these issues, as well as on related case studies. The first two articles centre around the introduction of computers and the Web to older people in the United Kingdom. The first one, entitled Strategies for teaching older people to use the World Wide Web, by Anna Dickinson, Roos Eisma, Peter Gregor, Audrey Syme and Scott Milne, describes the strategies that the authors adopted when teaching older people to use the Web in a computer class, by simplifying existing interfaces and tailoring the instruction to the level of the individuals in the class. The second article, Introducing computers and the Internet to older users: findings from the ’Care OnLine’ project, by Zaheer Osman, David Poulson and Colette Nicolle, describes a project where computers and the Internet were introduced to the homes of older people and vulnerable volunteers. This study demonstrated that older people can become active users of computers and the Internet, with significant benefits. The subsequent article, http://www.nihseniorhealth.gov The process of construction and revision in the development of a model Web Site for use by older adults, by Roger W. Morrell, offers comprehensive researchbased guidelines on how to make web sites accessible for older adults, and shows how such guidelines can be implemented in the construction of a web site for older adults to locate health information. Two articles report studies leading to interesting design implications. The first, entitled Input devices for Web browsing: age and hand effects, by Tiffany Jastrzembski, Neil Charness, Patricia Holley and Jeffrey Feddon, examines performance on a mixed pointing and data entry task using direct and indirect positioning devices for younger, middle-aged, and older experienced mouse users using preferred and non-preferred hands. The second one, Personalization of Web browsing: adaptations to meet the needs of older adults, by Vicki L. Hanson and Susan Crayne, discusses user controls that make a number of adaptations ’on the fly’, targeted to increase the usability of Web pages for a diverse population of users. One article, Senior users of the Internet: lessons from the cybernun Study, by Deborah J. Smith, looks at a unique group of older Web users: religious nuns. This study shows that computer use does not significantly increase life satisfaction of this group. However, the attitudes toward computer use improve with time, replicating results from other studies on computer use by older people. Finally, the paper titled User study on older adults’ use of Web and search engines, by Anne Aula, suggests that P. Zaphiris (&) Centre for HCI Design, City University, EC1V 0HB London, UK E-mail: zaphiris@soi.city.ac.uk