EDBT 2026 Demo / reviewers in the wild / expert
Shuai Ma 0005
dblp:254/7399-5
· DBLP profile ↗
21ranked-venue papers
7as first author
20since 2021 · last 2026
0000-0002-7658-292XORCID · verified
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 21 · 7 first-author · 20 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 1 · 1 since 2021
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Echoes of Norms: Investigating Counterspeech Bots' Influence on Bystanders in Online CommunitiesabstractCounterspeech offers a non-repressive approach to moderate hate speech in online communities. Research has examined how counterspeech chatbots restrain hate speakers and support targets, but their impact on bystanders remains unclear. Therefore, we developed a counterspeech strategy framework and built Civilbot for a mixed-method within-subjects study. Bystanders generally viewed Civilbot as credible and normative, though its shallow reasoning limited persuasiveness. Its behavioural effects were subtle: when performing well, it could guide participation or act as a stand-in; when performing poorly, it could discourage bystanders or motivate them to step in. Strategy proved critical: cognitive strategies that appeal to reason, especially when paired with a positive tone, were relatively effective, while mismatch of contexts and strategies could weaken impact. Based on these findings, we offer design insights for mobilizing bystanders and shaping online discourse, highlighting when to intervene and how to do so through reasoning-driven and context-aware strategies. Shuai Ma 0005, Peng Zhang 0060, Chenxin Li, Ning Gu 0001, Tun Lu |
CHI | 2 |
| 2026 | PriorWeaver: Prior Elicitation via Iterative Dataset ConstructionabstractIn Bayesian analysis, prior elicitation, or the process of facilitating the expression of one’s beliefs to inform statistical modeling, is an essential yet challenging step. Analysts often have beliefs about real-world variables and their relationships. However, existing tools require analysts to translate these beliefs and express them indirectly as probability distributions over model parameters. We present PriorWeaver, an interactive visualization system that facilitates prior elicitation through iterative dataset construction and refinement. Analysts visually express their assumptions about individual variables and their relationships. Under the hood, these assumptions create a dataset used to derive statistical priors. Prior predictive checks then help analysts compare the priors to their assumptions. In a lab study with 17 participants new to Bayesian analysis, we compare PriorWeaver to a baseline incorporating existing techniques. Compared to the baseline, PriorWeaver gave participants greater control, clarity, and confidence, leading to priors that were better aligned with their expectations. Yuwei Xiao, Shuai Ma 0005, Antti Oulasvirta, Eunice Jun |
CHI | 2 |
| 2026 | "Shall We Dig Deeper?": Designing and Evaluating Strategies for LLM Agents to Advance Knowledge Co-Construction in Asynchronous Online DiscussionsabstractAsynchronous online discussions enable diverse participants to co-construct knowledge beyond individual contributions. This process ideally evolves through sequential phases, from superficial information exchange to deeper synthesis. However, many discussions stagnate in the early stages. Existing AI interventions typically target isolated phases, lacking mechanisms to progressively advance knowledge co-construction, and the impacts of different intervention styles in this context remain unclear and warrant investigation. To address these gaps, we conducted a design workshop to explore AI intervention strategies (task-oriented and/or relationship-oriented) throughout the knowledge co-construction process, and implemented them in an LLM-powered agent capable of facilitating progression while consolidating foundations at each phase. A within-subject study (N=60) involving five consecutive asynchronous discussions showed that the agent consistently promoted deeper knowledge progression, with different styles exerting distinct effects on both content and experience. These findings provide actionable guidance for designing adaptive AI agents that sustain more constructive online discussions. Yuanhao Zhang, Kangyu Yuan, Shuai Ma 0005, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 5 |
| 2026 | Adaptive Prompt Elicitation for Text-to-Image GenerationabstractAligning text-to-image generation with user intent remains challenging, as users frequently provide ambiguous inputs and struggle with model idiosyncrasies. We propose Adaptive Prompt Elicitation (APE), a technique that adaptively poses visual queries to help users refine prompts without extensive writing. Our technical contribution is a formulation of interactive intent inference under an information-theoretic framework. APE represents latent user intent as interpretable feature requirements using language model priors, adaptively generates visual queries, and compiles elicited requirements into effective prompts. Evaluation on IDEA-Bench and DesignBench shows that APE achieves stronger alignment with improved efficiency. A user study with 128 participants on user-defined tasks demonstrates 19.8% higher perceived alignment without increased workload. Our work contributes a principled approach to prompting that offers an effective and efficient complement to the prevailing prompt-based interaction paradigm with text-to-image models. Xinyi Wen, Lena Hegemann, Xiaofu Jin, Shuai Ma 0005, Antti Oulasvirta |
IUI | 4 |
| 2025 | "AI Afterlife" as Digital Legacy: Perceptions, Expectations, and ConcernsabstractThe rise of generative AI technology has sparked interest in using digital information to create AI-generated agents as digital legacy.These agents, often referred to as "AI Afterlives", present unique challenges compared to traditional digital legacy.Yet, there is limited human-centered research on "AI Afterlife" as digital legacy, especially from the perspectives of the individuals being represented by these agents.This paper presents a qualitative study examining users' perceptions, expectations, and concerns regarding AI-generated agents as digital legacy.We identify factors shaping people's attitudes, their perceived differences compared with the traditional digital legacy, and concerns they might have in real practices.We also examine the design aspects throughout the life cycle and interaction process.Based on these findings, we situate "AI Afterlife" in digital legacy, and delve into design implications for maintaining identity consistency and balancing intrusiveness and support in "AI Afterlife" as digital legacy. Shuai Ma 0005, Yuling Sun, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 2 |
| 2025 | Scaffolded Turns and Logical Conversations: Designing Humanized LLM-Powered Conversational Agents for Hospital Admission InterviewsabstractHospital admission interviews are critical for patient care but strain nurses' capacity due to time constraints and staffing shortages. While LLM-powered conversational agents (CAs) offer automation potential, their rigid sequencing and lack of humanized communication skills risk misunderstandings and incomplete data capture. Through participatory design with clinicians and volunteers, we identified essential communication strategies and developed a novel CA that implements these strategies through: (1) dynamic topic management using graph-based conversation flows, and (2) context-aware scaffolding with few-shot prompt tuning. Technical evaluation on an admission interview dataset showed our system achieving performance comparable to or surpassing human-written ground truth, while outperforming prompt-engineered baselines. A between-subject study (N=44) demonstrated significantly improved user experience and data collection accuracy compared to existing solutions. We contribute a framework for humanizing medical CAs by translating clinician expertise into algorithmic strategies, alongside empirical insights for balancing efficiency and empathy in healthcare interactions, and considerations for generalizability. Dingdong Liu, Bolin Zhao, Shuai Ma 0005, Chuhan Shi, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 4 |
| 2025 | Signaling Human Intentions to Service Robots: Understanding the Use of Social Cues during In-Person ConversationsabstractAs social service robots become commonplace, it is essential for them to effectively interpret human signals, such as verbal, gesture, and eye gaze, when people need to focus on their primary tasks to minimize interruptions and distractions. Toward such a socially acceptable Human-Robot Interaction, we conducted a study ($N=24$) in an AR-simulated context of a coffee chat. Participants elicited social cues to signal intentions to an anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, grounded technical, or aerial technical robot waiter when they were speakers or listeners. Our findings reveal common patterns of social cues over intentions, the effects of robot morphology on social cue position and conversational role on social cue complexity, and users' rationale in choosing social cues. We offer insights into understanding social cues concerning perceptions of robots, cognitive load, and social context. Additionally, we discuss design considerations on approaching, social cue recognition, and response strategies for future service robots. Hanfang Lyu, Nandi Zhang, Shuai Ma 0005, Qian Zhu 0010, Yuhan Luo 0002, Fugee Tsung, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 4 |
| 2025 | Towards Human-AI Deliberation: Design and Evaluation of LLM-Empowered Deliberative AI for AI-Assisted Decision-MakingabstractTraditional AI-assisted decision-making systems often provide fixed recommendations that users must either accept or reject entirely, limiting meaningful interaction - especially in cases of disagreement. To address this, we introduce Human-AI Deliberation, an approach inspired by human deliberation theories that enables dimension-level opinion elicitation, iterative decision updates, and structured discussions between humans and AI. At the core of this approach is Deliberative AI, an assistant powered by large language models (LLMs) that facilitates flexible, conversational interactions and precise information exchange with domain-specific models. Through a mixed-methods user study, we found that Deliberative AI outperforms traditional explainable AI (XAI) systems by fostering appropriate human reliance and improving task performance. By analyzing participant perceptions, user experience, and open-ended feedback, we highlight key findings, discuss potential concerns, and explore the broader applicability of this approach for future AI-assisted decision-making systems. Shuai Ma 0005, Qiaoyi Chen, Chengbo Zheng, Zhenhui Peng, Ming Yin 0001, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 1 |
| 2025 | DBox: Scaffolding Algorithmic Programming Learning through Learner-LLM Co-DecompositionabstractDecomposition is a fundamental skill in algorithmic programming, requiring learners to break down complex problems into smaller, manageable parts. However, current self-study methods, such as browsing reference solutions or using LLM assistants, often provide excessive or generic assistance that misaligns with learners' decomposition strategies, hindering independent problem-solving and critical thinking. To address this, we introduce Decomposition Box (DBox), an interactive LLM-based system that scaffolds and adapts to learners' personalized construction of a step tree through a "learner-LLM co-decomposition"approach, providing tailored support at an appropriate level. A within-subjects study (N=24) found that compared to the baseline, DBox significantly improved learning gains, cognitive engagement, and critical thinking. Learners also reported a stronger sense of achievement and found the assistance appropriate and helpful for learning. Additionally, we examined DBox's impact on cognitive load, identified usage patterns, and analyzed learners' strategies for managing system errors. We conclude with design implications for future AI-powered tools to better support algorithmic programming education. Shuai Ma 0005, Junling Wang 0001, Yuanhao Zhang, Xiaojuan Ma, April Yi Wang |
CHI | 1 |
| 2025 | Decoding Cognitive Load: Eye-Tracking Insights into Working Memory and Visual AttentionabstractPublisher Copyright: © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Xiaofu Jin, Yunpeng Bai, Shuai Ma 0005, Danqing Shi, Luwen Yu, Mingming Fan 0001 |
ETRA | 4 |
| 2025 | When Traditional Medicine Meets AI: Critical Considerations for AI-Empowered Clinical Support in Traditional MedicineabstractTraditional Medicine (TM) is the oldest healthcare form and has been increasingly adopted as the primary or complementary medical therapy in the world. However, TM's practical development remains highly challenging. While artificial intelligence (AI) has become powerful in advancing modern medicine, limited attention has been paid to its potential and usage in TM. This study addresses this gap through a probe-based interview study with 16 TM clinicians, examining their experiences, perceptions, and expectations of AI-empowered clinical support systems. Our findings reveal that despite numerous AI-CDS systems, their practical usage in TM settings was still limited. We identify a series of practical challenges when integrating AI-CDS into TM clinical scenarios, largely due to TM's unique features and the significant data work challenges these features present. We end by critically discussing the potential issues that may arise when integrating AI into practical TM scenarios, and proposing a series of practical recommendations for future studies. Yuling Sun, Wenjing Yue, Xiaofu Jin, Shuai Ma 0005, Xiaojuan Ma, Xiaoling Wang 0004 |
Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. | 4 |
| 2024 | Towards Feature Engineering with Human and AI's Knowledge: Understanding Data Science Practitioners' Perceptions in Human&AI-Assisted Feature Engineering DesignabstractAs AI technology continues to advance, the importance of human-AI collaboration becomes increasingly evident, with numerous studies exploring its potential in various fields. One vital field is data science, including feature engineering (FE), where both human ingenuity and AI capabilities play pivotal roles. Despite the existence of AI-generated recommendations for FE, there remains a limited understanding of how to effectively integrate and utilize humans’ and AI’s knowledge. To address this gap, we design a readily-usable prototype, human&AI-assisted FE in Jupyter notebooks. It harnesses the strengths of humans and AI to provide feature suggestions to users, seamlessly integrating these recommendations into practical workflows. Using the prototype as a research probe, we conducted an exploratory study to gain valuable insights into data science practitioners’ perceptions, usage patterns, and their potential needs when presented with feature suggestions from both humans and AI. Through qualitative analysis, we discovered that the “Creator” of the feature (i.e., AI or human) significantly influences users’ feature selection, and the semantic clarity of the suggested feature greatly impacts its adoption rate. Furthermore, our findings indicate that users perceive both differences and complementarity between features generated by humans and those generated by AI. Lastly, based on our study results, we derived a set of design recommendations for future human&AI FE design. Our findings show the collaborative potential between humans and AI in the field of FE. Qian Zhu 0010, Dakuo Wang, Shuai Ma 0005, April Yi Wang, Zixin Chen, Udayan Khurana, Xiaojuan Ma |
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems | 3 |
| 2024 | Unpacking ICT-supported Social Connections and Support of Late-life Migration: From the Lens of Social ConvoysabstractMigration and aging-related dilemmas have limited the opportunities for late-life migrants to rebuild social connections and access support. While research on migrants has drawn increasing attention in HCI, limited attention has been paid to the increasing number of late-life migrants. This paper reports a qualitative study examining the social connections and support of late-life migrants. In particular, drawing on the social convoy model, we pay specific attention to the dynamic changes of late-life migrants’ social convoy, the supporting roles each convoy plays, the functions ICT plays in the process, as well as the encountered challenges and expectations of late-life migrants regarding ICT-supported social convoys. Based on these findings, we deeply discuss the role of the social convoy in supporting more targeted social support for late-life migrants, as well as broader migrant communities. Finally, we offer late-life migrant-oriented design considerations. Shuai Ma 0005, Yuling Sun |
CHI | 2 |
| 2024 | "Are You Really Sure?" Understanding the Effects of Human Self-Confidence Calibration in AI-Assisted Decision MakingabstractIn AI-assisted decision-making, it is crucial but challenging for humans to achieve appropriate reliance on AI. This paper approaches this problem from a human-centered perspective, “human self-confidence calibration”. We begin by proposing an analytical framework to highlight the importance of calibrated human self-confidence. In our first study, we explore the relationship between human self-confidence appropriateness and reliance appropriateness. Then in our second study, We propose three calibration mechanisms and compare their effects on humans’ self-confidence and user experience. Subsequently, our third study investigates the effects of self-confidence calibration on AI-assisted decision-making. Results show that calibrating human self-confidence enhances human-AI team performance and encourages more rational reliance on AI (in some aspects) compared to uncalibrated baselines. Finally, we discuss our main findings and provide implications for designing future AI-assisted decision-making interfaces. Shuai Ma 0005, Chuhan Shi, Ming Yin 0001, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 1 |
| 2024 | Charting the Future of AI in Project-Based Learning: A Co-Design Exploration with StudentsabstractStudents’ increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents new challenges for assessing their mastery of knowledge and skills in project-based learning (PBL). This paper introduces a co-design study to explore the potential of students’ AI usage data as a novel material for PBL assessment. We conducted workshops with 18 college students, encouraging them to speculate an alternative world where they could freely employ AI in PBL while needing to report this process to assess their skills and contributions. Our workshops yielded various scenarios of students’ use of AI in PBL and ways of analyzing such usage grounded by students’ vision of how educational goals may transform. We also found that students with different attitudes toward AI exhibited distinct preferences in how to analyze and understand their use of AI. Based on these findings, we discuss future research opportunities on student-AI interactions and understanding AI-enhanced learning. Chengbo Zheng, Kangyu Yuan, Bingcan Guo, Reza Hadi Mogavi, Zhenhui Peng, Shuai Ma 0005, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 6 |
| 2023 | Who Should I Trust: AI or Myself? Leveraging Human and AI Correctness Likelihood to Promote Appropriate Trust in AI-Assisted Decision-MakingabstractIn AI-assisted decision-making, it is critical for human decision-makers to know when to trust AI and when to trust themselves. However, prior studies calibrated human trust only based on AI confidence indicating AI’s correctness likelihood (CL) but ignored humans’ CL, hindering optimal team decision-making. To mitigate this gap, we proposed to promote humans’ appropriate trust based on the CL of both sides at a task-instance level. We first modeled humans’ CL by approximating their decision-making models and computing their potential performance in similar instances. We demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of our model via two preliminary studies. Then, we proposed three CL exploitation strategies to calibrate users’ trust explicitly/implicitly in the AI-assisted decision-making process. Results from a between-subjects experiment (N=293) showed that our CL exploitation strategies promoted more appropriate human trust in AI, compared with only using AI confidence. We further provided practical implications for more human-compatible AI-assisted decision-making. Shuai Ma 0005, Chengbo Zheng, Chuhan Shi, Ming Yin 0001, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 1 |
| 2023 | RetroLens: A Human-AI Collaborative System for Multi-step Retrosynthetic Route PlanningabstractMulti-step retrosynthetic route planning (MRRP) is the core task in synthetic chemistry, in which chemists recursively deconstruct a target molecule to find a set of reactants that make up the target. MRRP is challenging in that the search space is vast, and chemists are often lost in the process. Existing AI models can achieve automatic MRRP fast, but they only work on relatively simple targets, which leaves complex molecules under chemists’ expertise. To facilitate MRRP of complex molecules, we proposed a human-AI collaborative system, RetroLens, through a participatory design process. AI can contribute by two approaches: joint action and algorithm-in-the-loop. Deconstruction steps are allocated to chemists or AI based on their capabilities and AI recommends candidate revision steps to fix problems along the way. A within-subjects study (N=18) showed that chemists who used RetroLens reported faster MRRP, broader design space exploration, higher confidence in their planning, and lower cognitive load. Chuhan Shi, Shenan Wang, Shuai Ma 0005, Chengbo Zheng, Xiaojuan Ma, Qiong Luo 0001 |
CHI | 4 |
| 2023 | Competent but Rigid: Identifying the Gap in Empowering AI to Participate Equally in Group Decision-MakingabstractExisting research on human-AI collaborative decision-making focuses mainly on the interaction between AI and individual decision-makers. There is a limited understanding of how AI may perform in group decision-making. This paper presents a wizard-of-oz study in which two participants and an AI form a committee to rank three English essays. One novelty of our study is that we adopt a speculative design by endowing AI equal power to humans in group decision-making. We enable the AI to discuss and vote equally with other human members. We find that although the voice of AI is considered valuable, AI still plays a secondary role in the group because it cannot fully follow the dynamics of the discussion and make progressive contributions. Moreover, the divergent opinions of our participants regarding an “equal AI” shed light on the possible future of human-AI relations. Chengbo Zheng, Yuheng Wu 0004, Chuhan Shi, Shuai Ma 0005, Jiehui Luo, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 4 |
| 2023 | Modeling Adaptive Expression of Robot Learning Engagement and Exploring Its Effects on Human TeachersabstractRobot Learning from Demonstration (RLfD) allows non-expert users to teach a robot new skills or tasks directly through demonstrations. Although modeled after human–human learning and teaching, existing RLfD methods make robots act as passive observers without the feedback of their learning statuses in the demonstration gathering stage. To facilitate a more transparent teaching process, we propose two mechanisms of Learning Engagement , Z2O-Mode and D2O-Mode, to dynamically adapt robots’ attentional and behavioral engagement expressions to their actual learning status. Through an online user experiment with 48 participants, we find that, compared with two baselines, the two kinds of Learning Engagement can lead to users’ more accurate mental models of the robot’s learning progress, more positive perceptions of the robot, and better teaching experience. Finally, we provide implications for leveraging engagement expression to facilitate transparent human-AI (robot) communication based on our key findings. Shuai Ma 0005, Mingfei Sun 0001, Xiaojuan Ma |
ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. | 1 |
| 2022 | Glancee: An Adaptable System for Instructors to Grasp Student Learning Status in Synchronous Online ClassesabstractSynchronous online learning has become a trend in recent years. However, instructors often face the challenge of inferring audiences’ reactions and learning status without seeing their faces in video feeds, which prevents instructors from establishing connections with students. To solve this problem, based on a need-finding survey with 67 college instructors, we propose Glancee, a real-time interactive system with adaptable configurations, sidebar-based visual displays, and comprehensive learning status detection algorithms. Then, we conduct a within-subject user study in which 18 college instructors deliver lectures online with Glancee and two baselines, EngageClass and ZoomOnly. Results show that Glancee can effectively support online teaching and is perceived to be significantly more helpful than the baselines. We further investigate how instructors’ emotions, behaviors, attention, cognitive load, and trust are affected during the class. Finally, we offer design recommendations for future online teaching assistant systems. Shuai Ma 0005, Taichang Zhou, Fei Nie, Xiaojuan Ma |
CHI | 1 |
| 2019 | SmartEye: Assisting Instant Photo Taking via Integrating User Preference with Deep View Proposal NetworkabstractInstant photo taking and sharing has become one of the most popular forms of social networking. However, taking high-quality photos is difficult as it requires knowledge and skill in photography that most non-expert users lack. In this paper we present SmartEye, a novel mobile system to help users take photos with good compositions in-situ. The back-end of SmartEye integrates the View Proposal Network (VPN), a deep learning based model that outputs composition suggestions in real time, and a novel, interactively updated module (P-Module) that adjusts the VPN outputs to account for personalized composition preferences. We also design a novel interface with functions at the front-end to enable real-time and informative interactions for photo taking. We conduct two user studies to investigate SmartEye qualitatively and quantitatively. Results show that SmartEye effectively models and predicts personalized composition preferences, provides instant high-quality compositions in-situ, and outperforms the non-personalized systems significantly. Shuai Ma 0005, Zijun Wei, Feng Tian 0001, Xiangmin Fan, Jianming Zhang 0001, Xiaohui Shen, Zhe Lin 0001, Jin Huang 0009, Radomír Mech, Dimitris Samaras, Hongan Wang |
CHI | 1 |