This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Soft-Ware 2002, held in Belfast, North Ireland in April 2002. The 24 revised full papers presented together with seven abstracts of invited presentations and the summary of a panel were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. All presentations are devoted to the effective handling of soft issues in the design, development, and operation of computing systems, from an academic research point of view as well as from the point of view of industrial practice. The papers aim at integrating an interdisciplinary range of disciplines including artificial intelligence, information systems, software engineering, and systems engineering.