Sense and Sensability: Exploring Future Immersive Environments for Scholarly SensemakingScholars must often make sense of vast amounts of complex and diverse scholarly information, much of which is not "senseable": crucial information like questions, concepts, or assertions, along with key properties like truthlikeness or evocativeness, are primarily identified through effortful search or reasoning, rather than direct perception through the senses. In this paper, we explore how we might augment scholarly sensemaking by making the full range of scholarly information more senseable. First, we systematically reviewed systems for scholarly sensemaking, and enumerated key types of scholarly information and their properties. Then, we synthesized design patterns for materializing abstract information in modern artworks, and connected them with our enumerated scholarly information and properties to develop three novel conceptual designs for senseable scholarly sensemaking in immersive environments. Our work lays the foundation for a novel design framework for exploring future immersive environments for scholarly sensemaking.2025SZSiyi Zhu et al.Immersion & Presence ResearchPrototyping & User TestingC&C
"The Diagram is like Guardrails": Structuring GenAI-assisted Hypotheses Exploration with an Interactive Shared RepresentationData analysis encompasses a spectrum of tasks, from high-level conceptual reasoning to lower-level execution. While AI-powered tools increasingly support execution tasks, there remains a need for intelligent assistance in conceptual tasks. This paper investigates the design of an ordered node-link tree interface augmented with AI-generated information hints and visualizations, as a potential shared representation for hypothesis exploration. Through a design probe (n=22), participants generated diagrams averaging 21.82 hypotheses. Our findings showed that the node-link diagram acts as "guardrails" for hypothesis exploration, facilitating structured workflows, providing comprehensive overviews, and enabling efficient backtracking. The AI-generated information hints, particularly visualizations, aided users in transforming abstract ideas into data-backed concepts while reducing cognitive load. We further discuss how node-link diagrams can support both parallel exploration and iterative refinement in hypothesis formulation, potentially enhancing the breadth and depth of human-AI collaborative data analysis.2025ZDZijian Ding et al.Human-LLM CollaborationInteractive Data VisualizationC&C
Words as Bridges: Exploring Computational Support for Cross-Disciplinary Translation WorkScholars often explore literature outside of their home community of study. This exploration process is frequently hampered by field-specific jargon. Past computational work often focuses on supporting translation work by removing jargon through simplification and summarization; here, we explore a different approach that preserves jargon as useful bridges to new conceptual spaces. Specifically, we cast different scholarly domains as different language-using communities, and explore how to adapt techniques from unsupervised cross-lingual alignment of word embeddings to explore conceptual alignments between domain-specific word embedding spaces.We developed a prototype cross-domain search engine that uses aligned domain-specific embeddings to support conceptual exploration, and tested this prototype in two case studies. We discuss qualitative insights into the promises and pitfalls of this approach to translation work, and suggest design insights for future interfaces that provide computational support for cross-domain information seeking.2025CBCalvin S. Bao et al.User Research Methods (Interviews, Surveys, Observation)Computational Methods in HCIIUI
Patterns of Hypertext-Augmented SensemakingThe early days of HCI were marked by bold visions of hypertext as a transformative medium for augmented sensemaking, exemplified in systems like Memex, Xanadu, and NoteCards. Today, however, hypertext is often disconnected from discussions of the future of sensemaking. In this paper, we investigate how the recent resurgence in hypertext ``tools for thought'' might point to new directions for hypertext-augmented sensemaking. Drawing on detailed analyses of guided tours with 23 scholars, we describe hypertext-augmented use patterns for dealing with the core problem of revisiting and reusing existing/past ideas during scholarly sensemaking. We then discuss how these use patterns validate and extend existing knowledge of hypertext design patterns for sensemaking, and point to new design opportunities for augmented sensemaking.2024SZSiyi Zhu et al.User Research Methods (Interviews, Surveys, Observation)Prototyping & User TestingUIST
Improving Selection of Analogical Inspirations through Chunking and RecombinationAnalogies can be a powerful source of new ideas; however, creators often fail to recognize and harness potentially beneficial analogical leads, especially from other problem domains. In this paper, we introduce AnalogiLead, an interactive interface designed to reduce premature dismissal of analogies by facilitating playful exploration of analogical leads. Drawing on cognitive mechanisms of conceptual chunking and recombination, AnalogiLead scaffolds users to engage with meaningful chunks of problems and analogies and recombine them into inspiring brainstorming questions. In a within-subjects experiment, participants (N=23) who used AnalogiLead dismissed analogies 4x less often, with 12x fewer decision changes, compared to a baseline interface with no chunking or recombination. This reduction in premature dismissal was associated with ~64% longer processing time. Through qualitative analysis of video and think-aloud data, we describe how the chunking and recombination mechanisms facilitated playful engagement with analogies. These findings highlight opportunities and challenges for improving analogical innovation through careful theory-driven design of interfaces for selecting analogical leads.2024ASArvind Srinivasan et al.Creative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsComputational Methods in HCIC&C
Formulating or Fixating: Effects of Examples on Problem Solving Vary as a Function of Example Presentation Interface DesignInteractive systems that facilitate exposure to examples can augment problem solving performance. However designers of such systems are often faced with many practical design decisions about how users will interact with examples, with little clear theoretical guidance. To understand how example interaction design choices affect whether/how people benefit from examples, we conducted an experiment where 182 participants worked on a controlled analog to an exploratory creativity task, with access to examples of varying diversity and presentation interfaces. Task performance was worse when examples were presented in a list, compared to contextualized in the exploration space or shown in a dropdown list. Example lists were associated with more fixation, whereas contextualized examples were associated with using examples to formulate a model of the problem space to guide exploration. We discuss implications of these results for a theoretical framework that maps design choices to fundamental psychological mechanisms of creative inspiration from examples.2024JCJoel Chan et al.University of MarylandPrototyping & User TestingComputational Methods in HCICHI
Exploring Challenges to Inclusion in Participatory Design From the Perspectives of Global North PractitionersParticipatory Design (PD) aims to promote inclusivity by involving users throughout the design process. However, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and social computing research have pointed to instances where PD as practiced can, paradoxically, be exclusive. We aim to understand some of the challenges that could lead to exclusivity in order to design more inclusive PD practices. To investigate this, we conducted interviews with ten expert PD practitioners based in the Global North whose focus is on inclusion. Synthesizing practitioners’ accounts, we advance understandings of challenges surrounding: 1) instantiating shared spaces that empower partners; 2) developing common ground among stakeholders; and 3) balancing funding needs with open-ended PD. We contribute theoretical and empirical insights into these challenges and close by articulating potential implications for addressing these challenges to inclusion in PD.2023SESalma Elsayed-Ali et al.InclusionCSCW
Fluid Transformers and Creative Analogies: Exploring Large Language Models' Capacity for Augmenting Cross-Domain Analogical CreativityCross-domain analogical reasoning is a core creative ability that can be challenging for humans. Recent work has shown some proofs-of-concept of Large language Models’ (LLMs) ability to generate cross-domain analogies. However, the reliability and potential usefulness of this capacity for augmenting human creative work has received little systematic exploration. In this paper, we systematically explore LLMs capacity to augment cross-domain analogical reasoning. Across three studies, we found: 1) LLM-generated cross-domain analogies were frequently judged as helpful in the context of a problem reformulation task (median 4 out of 5 helpfulness rating), and frequently (~80\% of cases) led to observable changes in problem formulations, and 2) there was an upper bound of ~25\% of outputs bring rated as potentially harmful, with a majority due to potentially upsetting content, rather than biased or toxic content. These results demonstrate the potential utility --- and risks --- of LLMs for augmenting cross-domain analogical creativity.2023ZDZijian Ding et al.Generative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Human-LLM CollaborationC&C
Scaling Creative Inspiration with Fine-Grained Functional Aspects of Product IdeasLarge repositories of products, patents and scientific papers offer an opportunity for building systems that scour millions of ideas and help users discover inspirations. However, idea descriptions are typically in the form of unstructured text, lacking key structure that is required for supporting creative innovation interactions. Prior work has explored idea representations that were either limited in expressivity, required significant manual effort from users, or dependent on curated knowledge bases with poor coverage. We explore a novel representation that automatically breaks up products into fine-grained functional aspects capturing the purposes and mechanisms of ideas, and use it to support important creative innovation interactions: functional search for ideas, and exploration of the design space around a focal problem by viewing related problem perspectives pooled from across many products. In user studies, our approach boosts the quality of creative search and inspirations, substantially outperforming strong baselines by 50-60%.2022THTom Hope et al.Allen Institute , University of WashingtonGenerative AI (Text, Image, Music, Video)Creative Collaboration & Feedback SystemsCHI
Managing Context during Scholarly Knowledge Synthesis: Process Patterns and System MechanicsScholarly knowledge synthesis --- the production of a novel conceptual whole such as an effective literature review or theory --- is a critical yet consistently challenging subtask of research. We explore how managing the context of knowledge claims being synthesized, such as their production context or methodology, may be a critical under-supported subtask of synthesis in existing tools. Through in situ protocol analyses of researchers doing the work of synthesis, we studied how researchers capture contextual information in their notes and annotations, and how this varies across generic vs. specialized systems for synthesis. Our analysis revealed common process patterns of context capture, and qualitative differences in the nature of support for context capture across generic and specialized systems. Based on these findings, we discuss design implications for systems that aim to better support scholarly synthesis.2021JMJohn S Morabito et al.Knowledge Worker Tools & WorkflowsPrototyping & User TestingC&C
Understanding Older Adults' Participation in Design WorkshopsDesign workshops are a popular means of including older adults in technology development. However, there are open questions around how to best scaffold this participation, particularly in supporting older adults to associate their designs with themselves, rather than designing for an "other older adult." By conducting workshops focusing on envisioning the future of internet of things (IoT) technologies at home, we provide an understanding of how older individuals participate in group activities to conceptualize technology for themselves. We find that at different stages of the design process, individuals shift in who they envision the end user of the technology: at first, they think about common older adult needs, then turn to designing for themselves. Individuals' attitudes towards technology also impact group dynamics along with final design ideas. Our discussion contributes to an understanding of how to support older adults in designing for themselves, new perspectives on aging-in-place technologies, and recommendations for configuring design workshops with older individuals.2020APAlisha Pradhan et al.University of MarylandAging-Friendly Technology DesignAging-in-Place Assistance SystemsParticipatory DesignCHI
SOLVENT: A Mixed Initiative System for Finding Analogies between Research PapersScientific discoveries are often driven by finding analogies in distant domains, but the growing number of papers makes it difficult to find relevant ideas in a single discipline, let alone distant analogies in other domains. To provide computational support for finding analogies across domains, we introduce SOLVENT, a mixed-initiative system where humans annotate aspects of research papers that denote their background (the high-level problems being addressed), purpose (the specific problems being addressed), mechanism (how they achieved their purpose), and findings (what they learned/achieved), and a computational model constructs a semantic representation from these annotations that can be used to find analogies among the research papers. We demonstrate that this system finds more analogies than baseline information-retrieval approaches; that annotators and annotations can generalize beyond domain; and that the resulting analogies found are useful to experts. These results demonstrate a novel path towards computationally supported knowledge sharing in research communities.2018JCJoel Chan et al.Research MethodsCSCW