Understanding Spatiotemporal-Aware Multimodal Conversational Search in the Outdoor Urban SpaceEmerging multimodal conversational search (MCS) tools (e.g., Gemini Live) allow users to search for spatiotemporal information through natural language dialogues as they move through urban space. Despite the growing popularity of these tools, there is limited understanding of how people engage with this technology. To address this gap, we developed UrbanSearch, an MCS technology probe designed to capture the user's current geolocation, time, and visual surroundings. A contextual inquiry (N=23) revealed that MCS tools provide two core values: requiring low effort in forming queries while offering highly relevant responses, and functioning as a central information gateway. As a promising technology, MCS supports environmental learning, in-situ decision making, and personalized navigation. Participants also revealed unmet needs for spatial reasoning and transparent integration of multi-source information, along with concerns related to peripheral awareness, social context, and personal space. Drawing from the findings, we discuss design implications for future MCS tools in urban spaces.2026JXJiangnan Xu et al.Rochester Institute of TechnologyExploratory Search & Information SeekingConversational Search & QA SystemsContext-Aware ComputingCHI
Understanding the Dynamics of Trust in Location-Based Games as Hybrid Spaces: The Players' PerspectiveLocation-based games (LBGs) merge digital play with physical environments, creating hybrid spaces that require players to navigate complex trust dynamics. Despite their global popularity, LBGs introduce unique challenges around fairness, safety, and privacy, spanning interactions among players, game systems, local communities, and non-players in shared public spaces. To examine how trust is perceived, built, and sustained in these environments, we conducted in-depth interviews with 26 players of four major LBGs: Pokémon GO, Monster Hunter Now, Ingress, and Pikmin Bloom. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we identified dynamics of trust across four trustor–trustee relationships: player–system, player–player, player–community, and player–non-player in five key aspects: fair play, location privacy, online vetting, hybrid interaction, and public play. Drawing on our findings, we propose a trust model for analyzing and designing trust in LBGs as hybrid spaces, and we outline design implications aimed at strengthening trust building and sustaining trustworthy interactions across the LBG ecology.2026JXJiangnan Xu et al.Rochester Institute of TechnologyGame UX & Player BehaviorSocial Platform Design & User BehaviorPrivacy by Design & User ControlCHI
DiaryPlay: AI-Assisted Creation of Interactive Story Vignettes for Everyday StorytellingAn interactive vignette is a visual storytelling medium that lets the audience role-play a character and interact with non-player characters (NPCs) and the digital environment. Yet, the authoring complexity of interactive vignettes has obstructed their adoption in everyday storytelling, which builds on immediacy. We introduce DiaryPlay, an AI-assisted authoring system that generates interactive vignettes from text stories. The Authoring Component visually elicits three core elements (environment, characters, events) through automation and author refinement. The Viewing Component delivers an interactive story to the audience using an LLM-powered Controlled Divergence Module, which allows divergent player and NPC behaviors within the boundaries defined by the author's intended story. A technical evaluation shows that the Controlled Divergence module generates believable NPC activities based on both character persona and storyline. A user study demonstrates that DiaryPlay enables low-effort authoring of interactive vignettes for everyday storytelling while providing engaging viewing experiences and conveying the core story message.2026JXJiangnan Xu et al.Tampere UniversityGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Role-Playing & Narrative GamesAI-Assisted Creative WritingCHI
Exploring Deaf And Hard of Hearing Peoples’ Perspectives On Tasks In Augmented Reality: Interacting With 3D Objects And Instructional ComprehensionTasks in augmented reality (AR), such as 3D interaction and instructional comprehension, are often designed for users with uniform sensory abilities. Such an approach, however, can overlook the more nuanced needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) users who might have reduced auditory perception. To better understand these challenges, our study utilized the single-player AR game Angry Birds AR as a probe to explore how 11 DHH participants and 15 hearing participants experienced AR interactions. Our findings highlight that DHH users prefer interaction based on context, effective haptic cues, audio cue substitutes, and clear instructional design. We, therefore, propose the following design recommendations to enhance the accessibility of AR for DHH users. This includes customizable UI options, modular feedback systems, and virtual avatars for sign language instructions.2025SLSanzida Mojib Luna et al.Rochester Institute of Technology, Niantic x RIT Geo Games and Media Research LabAR Navigation & Context AwarenessDeaf & Hard-of-Hearing Support (Captions, Sign Language, Vibration)CHI
User Motivations to Participate in Crowdsourcing and Contribute User-generated Content on Location-based Media: A Literature ReviewLocation-based media applications such as Google Maps, Strava and Pokémon GO together have more than a billion monthly active users, and popular social media such as Snapchat and Instagram now also feature map-based content. All these media products rely on user-generated content as a core element of their service, but there is a lack of synthesis on the users' motivations to contribute this data to the platform providers. In this study, we performed a literature review to uncover users' motivations to participate in location-based crowdsourcing and contribute shared content on these platforms. Among our findings, we show that spatial and temporal aspects, social effects, technical elements, motivational mechanisms, practical value offered to the contributors and individual differences need to be considered in motivating users to contribute shared content. We present recommendations for designers, suggest which terminology to use around this topic and propose an agenda for future research.2025SLSamuli Laato et al.University of Turku, Turku School of Economics; Tampere University , Gamification GroupCrowdsourcing Task Design & Quality ControlCitizen Science & Crowdsourced DataCommunity Engagement & Civic TechnologyCHI
Communication, Collaboration, and Coordination in a Co-located Shared Augmented Reality Game: Perspectives From Deaf and Hard of Hearing PeopleCo-located collaborative shared augmented reality (CS-AR) environments have gained considerable research attention, mainly focusing on design, implementation, accuracy, and usability. Yet, a gap persists in our understanding regarding the accessibility and inclusivity of such environments for diverse user groups, such as deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) people. To investigate this domain, we used Urban Legends, a multiplayer game in a co-located CS-AR setting. We conducted a user study followed by one-on-one interviews with 17 DHH participants. Our findings revealed the usage of multimodal communication (verbal and non-verbal) before and during the game, impacting the amount of collaboration among participants and how their coordination with AR components, their surroundings, and other participants improved throughout the rounds. We utilize our data to propose design enhancements, including onscreen visuals and speech-to-text transcription, centered on participant perspectives and our analysis.2024SLSanzida Mojib Luna et al.Rochester Institute of TechnologySocial & Collaborative VRDeaf & Hard-of-Hearing Support (Captions, Sign Language, Vibration)Accessible GamingCHI
Tasks of a Different Color: How Crowdsourcing Practices Differ per Complex Task Type and Why This MattersCrowdsourcing in China is a thriving industry. Among its most interesting structures, we find crowdfarms, in which crowdworkers self-organize as small organizations to tackle macrotasks. Little, however, is known as to which practices these crowdfarms use to tackle the macrotasks, and this goes hand in hand with the current practice of the HCI research community to treat all forms of complex crowdsourcing work as practically the same. However, macrotasks differ substantially regarding structure and decomposability. Treating them under one umbrella term - macrotasking - can lead to an imprecise understanding of the workforce involved. We address this gap by examining the work practices of 31 Chinese crowdfarms on the four main macrotask types, namely: modular, interlaced, wicked, and container macrotasks. Our results confirm essential differences in how these nascent crowd organizations address different macrotasks and shed light on what platforms can do to improve the uptake of such work.2023YWYihong Wang et al.Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool UniversityMental Health Apps & Online Support CommunitiesCrowdsourcing Task Design & Quality ControlDeveloping Countries & HCI for Development (HCI4D)CHI
Understanding Social Interactions in Location-based Games as Hybrid Spaces: Coordination and Collaboration in Raiding in Pokémon GOThe overlaying of physical spaces with digital information produces hybrid spaces, redefining people’s experience of social interactions. Location-based games (LBGs) with social components are a good case. Yet, the impact LBGs have on sociability remains under-researched. In April 2020, the new in-person/remote raiding format in the LBG Pokémon GO provided a lens to explore people’s social interactions in hybrid spaces. We interviewed 41 Pokémon GO players to understand how players coordinate and collaborate for in-person/remote raids and other social patterns. Our findings demonstrate that new social dynamics occurred: participants’ social interactions highly rely on external social media groups bridging cyberspace and the physical world. In such external social media groups, spontaneously formed leadership roles and mentor-mentee relationships demonstrate autonomy among players in the hybrid space. However, we observed that the interoperability issue challenges people’s experience. Overall, this work sheds light on the social interactions in LBGs as hybrid spaces.2023JXJiangnan Xu et al.Rochester Institute of TechnologyMultiplayer & Social GamesInteractive Narrative & Immersive StorytellingCHI
Building Positively Affective Location-Based Advertising: A Study of Pokémon GO PlayersWith the expanding popularity of Location-Based Games and the rise of advertising therein, there exists a need to comprehend the impact of Location-Based Game Advertising (LGA). This paper seeks to identify what makes positively affective LGA, leveraging Pokémon GO as a probe. Researchers conducted twenty-seven (n=27) semi-structured interviews with Pokémon GO players to reveal lived experiences regarding LGA. Our findings highlight \revision{the following} direct implications for LGA: (1) LGA act as a digital billboard, conveying qualitative alongside locative information, and (2) well-received LGA enhances the player’s agency. We additionally identify findings that have auxiliary implications to LGA: (3) positive memorability occurs when points of interest match physical reality, and (4) ludic engagement is a mediating factor in the memorability of locations. This research demonstrates that LGA in Location-Based Games is surprisingly well-received. However, developers must provide extra consideration to the player’s agency for such techniques to be effective.2023JDJohn Dunham et al.Rochester Institute of TechnologyGamification DesignLive Streaming & Content CreatorsCHI
An Examination of the Work Practices of CrowdfarmsCrowdsourcing is a new value creation business model. Annual revenue of the Chinese market alone is hundreds of millions of dollars, yet few studies have focused on the practices of the Chinese crowdsourcing workforce, and those that do mainly focus on solo crowdworkers. We have extended our study of solo crowdworker practices to include crowdfarms, a relatively new entry to the gig economy: small companies that carry out crowdwork as a key part of their business. We report here on interviews of people who work in 53 crowdfarms. We describe how crowdfarms procure jobs, carry out macrotasks and microtasks, manage their reputation, and employ different management practices to motivate crowdworkers and customers.2021YWYihong Wang et al.Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool UniversityCrowdsourcing Task Design & Quality ControlGig Economy PlatformsCHI
Crowdsourcing in China: Exploring the Work Experiences of Solo Crowdworkers and Crowdfarm WorkersRecent research highlights the potential of crowdsourcing in China. Yet very few studies explore the workplace context and experiences of Chinese crowdworkers. Those that do, focus mainly on the work experiences of solo crowdworkers but do not deal with issues pertaining to the substantial amount of people working in 'crowdfarms'. This article addresses this gap as one of its primary concerns. Drawing on a study that involves 48 participants, our research explores, compares and contrasts the work experiences of solo crowdworkers to those of crowdfarm workers. Our findings illustrate that the work experiences and context of the solo workers and crowdfarm workers are substantially different, with regards to their motivations, the ways they engage with crowdsourcing, the tasks they work on, and the crowdsourcing platforms they utilize. Overall, our study contributes to furthering the understandings on the work experiences of crowdworkers in China.2020YWYihong Wang et al.Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool UniversityCrowdsourcing Task Design & Quality ControlDeveloping Countries & HCI for Development (HCI4D)CHI
When Crowds Give You Lemons: Filtering Innovative Ideas using a Diverse-Bag-of-Lemons StrategyFollowing successful crowd ideation contests, organizations in search of the "next big thing" are left with hundreds of ideas. Expert-based idea filtering is lengthy and costly; therefore, crowd-based strategies are often employed. Unfortunately, these strategies typically (1) do not separate the mediocre from the excellent, and (2) direct all the attention to certain idea concepts, while others starve. We introduce DBLemons - a crowd-based idea filtering strategy that addresses these issues by (1) asking voters to identify the worst rather than the best ideas using a ``bag of lemons'' voting approach, and (2) by exposing voters to a wider idea spectrum, thanks to a dynamic diversity-based ranking system balancing idea quality and coverage. We compare DBLemons against two state-of-the-art idea filtering strategies in a real-world setting. Results show that DBLemons is more accurate, less time-consuming, and reduces the idea space in half while still retaining 94% of the top ideas.2018ILIoanna Lykourentzou et al.Meetings and Decision MakingCSCW