Ying-Hsang LIU

Uppsala, Sweden

Chemnitz, Germany

I am a Researcher currently involved in the EU-funded CAPTURE project at the Department of ALM, Uppsala University in Sweden. Additionally, I am a Visiting Scholar collaborating with the Professorship of Predictive Analytics at the Technical University of Chemnitz in Germany. My work encompasses various areas, including conducting a collaborative research project focused on eliciting user discovery contexts with the Australian Research Data Commons. Moreover, I have co-organized the Data Search initiative, a shared task on ad-hoc retrieval for governmental statistical data, organized by the NCTIR Project in Japan.

My research program revolves around Information Science, specifically Human-Centered Data Science, at the crossroads of information retrieval, knowledge organization, and human information behavior. I have a particular focus on designing and evaluating interactive information retrieval systems. In recent times, my research has concentrated on applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Digital Humanities and developing computational models for user-adaptive interfaces.

Recently, I co-edited a book titled Information and knowledge organization in digital humanities: Global perspectives, published by Routledge. I have also been engaged with the iSchool Digital Humanities Curriculum Committee and have worked on an EU-funded Digital Humanities project, PICCH (Polyvocal Interpretations of Contested Colonial Heritage).

selected publications

2023

User evaluation of conversational agents for aerospace domain

Ying-Hsang Liu, Alexandre Arnold, Gérard Dupont, and 7 more authors

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 2023

Abs Bib

10.1080/10447318.2023.2239544

The aerospace industry can benefit from conversational agents that provide efficient solutions for safety-of-life scenarios. This industry is characterized by products and systems that require years of engineering to achieve optimal performance within complex environments. With recent advances in retrieval and language models, conversational agents can be developed to enhance the system’s question-answering capabilities. However, evaluating the added-value of such systems in the context of industrial applications, such as pilots in a cockpit, can be challenging. This article presents the design, implementation, and user evaluation of a conversational agent called Smart Librarian, which is tailored to the aerospace domain’s specific requirements to support pilots in their tasks. Our results based on a controlled user experiment with flight school students indicate that the user’s perception of the usefulness of the system in completing the search task is a good predictor of both task score and time spent. The system’s responses to the relevance of the topic is also a good predictor of task score. The perceived difficulty of the search task and its interaction with the relevance of the system’s responses to the topic also play a key role in search performance. The mixed-effects models constructed in this study had large effect sizes, demonstrating participants’ ability to assess their performance accurately. Nevertheless, user satisfaction with the system’s responses may not be a reliable predictor of user search performance. Implications for the design of conversational agents based on the domain’s specific requirements are discussed.
@article{Liu2023ab, annote = {doi: 10.1080/10447318.2023.2239544}, author = {Liu, Ying-Hsang and Arnold, Alexandre and Dupont, G{\'{e}}rard and Kobus, Catherine and Lancelot, Francois and Granger, G{\'{e}}raud and Rouillard, Yves and Duchevet, Alexandre and Imbert, Jean-Paul and Matton, Nadine}, date-added = {2023-07-19 22:07:52 +0200}, date-modified = {2024-02-07 14:21:14 +0100}, doi = {10.1080/10447318.2023.2239544}, issn = {1532-7590}, journal = {International Journal of Human--Computer Interaction}, keywords = {article}, publisher = {Taylor {\&} Francis}, title = {{User evaluation of conversational agents for aerospace domain}}, year = {2023}, bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2239544} }
Elicitation of contexts for discovering clinical trials and related health data: An Interview Study (ARDC user study of data discovery project report 2)

Ying-Hsang Liu, Mingfang Wu, Megan Power, and 1 more author

2023

Abs Bib

10.5281/zenodo.7839282

In this project, we investigated the range of contexts of data discovery faced by clinical trials researchers, to better understand crucial factors that influence data discoverability and lead to data reuse. Our findings connect ways researchers both initiate personal data journeys and follow highly managed processes of data selection criteria. The project demonstrates the need for a holistic view in understanding data discovery approaches by clinical trials researchers. Our findings suggest the significance of prioritising user information needs for selecting and using datasets. As using a dataset involves a complex process of conducting secondary data analysis within a research project, it is important for data repositories to focus on meeting the objectives of system design at this level, which go beyond the scope of traditional information retrieval systems such as online databases and search engines. Data repositories need to consider ways to specify their objectives of system design for the data discovery systems and services.
@techreport{Liu:2023aa, author = {Liu, Ying-Hsang and Wu, Mingfang and Power, Megan and Burton, Adrian}, date-added = {2023-05-23 08:10:49 +0200}, date-modified = {2024-02-07 14:20:44 +0100}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.7839282}, institution = {Australian Research Data Commons}, keywords = {technical}, title = {Elicitation of contexts for discovering clinical trials and related health data: An Interview Study (ARDC user study of data discovery project report 2)}, year = {2023}, bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7839282} }

2022

Search interfaces for biomedical searching: How do gaze, user perception, search behaviour and search performance relate?

Ying-Hsang Liu, Paul Thomas, Tom Gedeon, and 1 more author

In CHIIR ’22: Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, 2022

Abs Bib

10.1145/3498366.3505769

The objective of this controlled information retrieval (IR) user experiment is to gain an understanding of domain experts’ interactions with novel search interfaces within the context of biomedical information search, with a goal of better search interface design. In this paper, we examine the relationships among user perception, gaze and search behaviour and user search performance. An eye-tracking study of biomedical domain experts’ interactions with novel search interfaces was conducted. A total of thirty-two users participated and searched for documents answering eight complex exploratory search tasks, using four different search interfaces. The findings suggest that gaze behaviour in terms of fixation durations based measures of areas of interest (AOI), i.e., visual attention to the elements of title, author, abstract and MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms in document surrogates is correlated with search performance. Users are more likely to achieve better search performance by precision-based measures when 1) search tasks are perceived as difficult; 2) users attend to the element of abstract; and 3) users can recall using the per-query suggestions during the search processes. More importantly, our findings suggest that a user search interface design that displays contextual information between the suggested keywords and the document may better support users reformulating their queries for complex search tasks in the biomedical domain. We discuss implications for the design of search user interfaces for biomedical searching.
@incollection{Liu:2022vi, author = {Liu, Ying-Hsang and Thomas, Paul and Gedeon, Tom and Rusnachenko, Nicolay}, booktitle = {CHIIR '22: Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval}, date-added = {2022-01-11 14:16:10 +0100}, date-modified = {2024-02-07 14:23:41 +0100}, doi = {10.1145/3498366.3505769}, keywords = {conference}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {Search interfaces for biomedical searching: How do gaze, user perception, search behaviour and search performance relate?}, year = {2022}, bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3498366.3505769} }
Information behavior and practices research informing information systems design

Isto Huvila, Heidi Enwald, Kristina Eriksson-Backa, and 2 more authors

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2022

Abs Bib

10.1002/asi.24611

Information behavior and practices (IBP) research has been repeatedly criticized for having little impact on information systems development (ISD). Claiming that there is a complete disconnect would be an exaggeration but it is apparent that it is not always easy to translate findings of IBP research to workable design recommendations. Based on a reading of earlier literature and a closer investigation of three illustrative example contexts, this article underlines that the value of IBP research for ISD lies in its capability to inform ISD of the variety of ways people deal with information beyond individual systems, their own wants and designers’ assumptions. Moreover, it highlights that the implications of information systems go beyond their primary users. Instead of overemphasizing the contextuality of findings, a part of IBP research would benefit from an increased focus on explicating its epistemological extents and limits and identifying, which findings are transferable, what distinguishes specific contexts, what are their defining constraints and priorities, and what aspects of their uniqueness are assumptions and simple clichés.
@article{Huvila:2022vg, annote = {https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24611}, author = {Huvila, Isto and Enwald, Heidi and Eriksson-Backa, Kristina and Liu, Ying-Hsang and Hirvonen, Noora}, date-added = {2022-01-11 13:57:17 +0100}, date-modified = {2024-02-07 14:22:42 +0100}, doi = {10.1002/asi.24611}, journal = {Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology}, keywords = {article}, number = {7}, pages = {1043--1057}, title = {Information behavior and practices research informing information systems design}, volume = {73}, year = {2022}, bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24611} }

2021

Search interface design and evaluation

Chang Liu, Ying-Hsang Liu, Jingjing Liu, and 1 more author

Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval, 2021

Bib

10.1561/1500000073

@article{Liu:2021we,
  addendum = {Also published as journal article, 2020 JIF: 8.000, SCIE},
  author = {Liu, Chang and Liu, Ying-Hsang and Liu, Jingjing and Bierig, Ralf},
  date-added = {2021-05-07 09:57:07 +0200},
  date-modified = {2023-08-30 14:02:37 +0200},
  doi = {10.1561/1500000073},
  journal = {Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval},
  keywords = {book},
  number = {3-4},
  pages = {243-416},
  publisher = {NOW Publishers},
  title = {Search interface design and evaluation},
  volume = {15},
  year = {2021},
  bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.1561/1500000073}
}

Information and knowledge organization in digital humanities: Global perspectives

2021

Bib

10.4324/9781003131816

@book{Golub:2021,
  addendum = {Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities Series},
  date-added = {2021-05-04 08:35:23 +0200},
  date-modified = {2023-08-30 14:03:59 +0200},
  doi = {10.4324/9781003131816},
  editor = {Golub, Koraljka and Liu, Ying-Hsang},
  keywords = {book},
  publisher = {Routledge},
  title = {Information and knowledge organization in digital humanities: Global perspectives},
  url = {https://bit.ly/2VFGFeg},
  year = {2021},
  bdsk-url-1 = {https://bit.ly/2VFGFeg}
}

Predicting visual search task success from eye gaze data as a basis for user-adaptive information visualization systems

Moritz Spiller, Ying-Hsang Liu, Md Zakir Hossain, and 3 more authors

ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, 2021

Bib

10.1145/3446638

@article{Spiller:2021vr,
  addendum = {2020 JIF: 2.137, SCIE},
  author = {Spiller, Moritz and Liu, Ying-Hsang and Hossain, Md Zakir and Gedeon, Tom and Geissler, Julia and N{\"{u}}rnberger, Andreas},
  date-added = {2021-03-04 16:53:01 +0100},
  date-modified = {2023-08-30 14:06:00 +0200},
  doi = {10.1145/3446638},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems},
  keywords = {article},
  number = {2},
  pages = {1--25},
  title = {Predicting visual search task success from eye gaze data as a basis for user-adaptive information visualization systems},
  volume = {11},
  year = {2021},
  bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3446638}
}

2020

The effect of numerical and textual information on visual engagement and perceptions of AI-driven persona interfaces

Joni Salminen, Ying-Hsang Liu, Sercan Şengün, and 3 more authors

In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, 2020

Bib

10.1145/3377325.3377492

@inproceedings{Salminen:2020uj,
  addendum = {CORE2021: A, FOR 4608 - Human-centred computing},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  author = {Salminen, Joni and Liu, Ying-Hsang and \c{S}eng\"{u}n, Sercan and Santos, Jo\~{a}o M. and Jung, Soon-gyo and Jansen, Bernard J.},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces},
  date-added = {2021-03-04 12:52:02 +0100},
  date-modified = {2023-08-30 14:08:01 +0200},
  doi = {10.1145/3377325.3377492},
  keywords = {conference},
  location = {Cagliari, Italy},
  numpages = {12},
  pages = {357--368},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  series = {IUI '20},
  title = {The effect of numerical and textual information on visual engagement and perceptions of AI-driven persona interfaces},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3377325.3377492},
  year = {2020},
  bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3377325.3377492}
}

User engagement with driving simulators: An analysis of physiological signals

Ying-Hsang Liu, Moritz Spiller, Jinshuai Ma, and 4 more authors

In HCI International 2020 –Late Breaking Papers: Digital Human Modeling and Ergonomics, Mobility and Intelligent Environments, 2020

Bib

10.1007/978-3-030-59987-4_10

@inproceedings{Liu:2020uj,
  address = {Cham},
  author = {Liu, Ying-Hsang and Spiller, Moritz and Ma, Jinshuai and Gedeon, Tom and Hossain, Md Zakir and Islam, Atiqul and Bierig, Ralf},
  booktitle = {HCI International 2020 --Late Breaking Papers: Digital Human Modeling and Ergonomics, Mobility and Intelligent Environments},
  date-added = {2021-03-04 12:49:18 +0100},
  date-modified = {2023-08-30 14:09:43 +0200},
  doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-59987-4_10},
  editor = {Stephanidis, Constantine and Duffy, Vincent G. and Streitz, Norbert and Konomi, Shin'ichi and Kr{\"o}mker, Heidi},
  keywords = {conference},
  pages = {130--149},
  publisher = {Springer International Publishing},
  title = {User engagement with driving simulators: An analysis of physiological signals},
  year = {2020},
  bdsk-url-1 = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59987-4%7B%5C_%7D10}
}