Adaptive technology is penetrating all subareas of Information Technology. We deem a system to be adaptive when it adapts to the context in which it is being used. For websites we mostly consider adaptation to the individual user, but also to user groups, to location, device (interface), etc.

In this talk we present an environment for creating and serving adaptive websites. We explain the different adaptation techniques that have been defined over the past decade, including techniques for content adaptation, adaptive navigation support and adaptive presentation. We then show the architecture of and adaptation language used by the generic adaptation engine GALE.

GALE allows content and adaptation to be described separately and also to be served from different sources. The GALE server can be used as a personal “adaptation proxy” but can also be used to provide adaptation to a large user group, for instance the student population of a university.