arXiv subjects

Ken Jen Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Ken Jen Lee.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The Missing Link of XR: Empathy-Driven Reality for XR and Beyond

Extended reality (XR) for socialising is becoming increasingly popular. However, unlike conventional social platforms, XR prioritises embodiment and immersion, factors that strongly impact one's physical and mental states. We envision a future for XR where all users, regardless of abilities and backgrounds, can understand one another, participate, and find safe socialisation spaces. An Empathy-Driven Reality (EDR) is a space where understanding each other's emotional, physical, and cognitive states takes centre stage. It has the potential to enhance empathy beyond how we normally perceive it. To explore this concept, we conducted a hybrid-style workshop over two months with 27 industry and academic researchers in XR, emotion, physiology, assistive technology, and social science. This paper reports on the findings and aims to establish a structure and reference for the 1) design guidelines, 2) research challenges, and 3) potential applications for the future of XR as an EDR. We frame EDR as a conceptual design framework rather than a validated system: a structured design space that links requirements to design mechanisms, together with a research agenda for empathy-centred XR.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

"Can't believe I'm crying over an anime girl": Public Parasocial Grieving and Coping Towards VTuber Graduation and Termination

Despite the significant increase in popularity of Virtual YouTubers (VTubers), research on the unique dynamics of viewer-VTuber parasocial relationships is nascent. This work investigates how English-speaking viewers grieved VTubers whose identities are no longer used, an interesting context as the nakanohito (i.e., the person behind the VTuber identity) is usually alive post-retirement and might "reincarnate" as another VTuber. We propose a typology for VTuber retirements and analyzed 13,655 Reddit posts and comments spanning nearly three years using mixed-methods. Findings include how viewers coped using methods similar to when losing loved ones, alongside novel coping methods reflecting different attachment styles. Although emotions like sadness, shock, concern, disapproval, confusion, and love decreased with time, regret and loyalty showed opposite trends. Furthermore, viewers' reactions situated a VTuber identity within a community of content creators and viewers. We also discuss design implications alongside implications on the VTuber ecosystem and future research directions.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Learning by Teaching: Key Challenges and Design Implications

Benefits of learning by teaching (LbT) have been highlighted by previous studies from a pedagogical lens, as well as through computer-supported systems. However, the challenges that university students face in technology-mediated LbT$\unicode{x2013}$whether it be teaching oneself, teaching a peer, or teaching an agent$\unicode{x2013}$are not well understood. Furthermore, there is a gap in knowledge on the challenges that students encounter throughout the process of teaching (content selection, preparation, teaching, receiving and giving feedback, and reflection) despite its importance to the design of LbT platforms. Thus, we conducted a study with 24 university students where they taught content they had not fully grasped, without guidance, and participated in a semi-structured interview. Results demonstrate that participants encountered the following challenges: psychological barriers relating to self and others, and lack of know-how. Furthermore, we illuminate design implications required to overcome these challenges and benefit from LbT without requiring prior training in pedagogy.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Towards a More Inclusive Metaverse via Designing Tools That Support Collaborative Virtual World Building by Users With and Without Disabilities

Research has found social VR to bring various benefits to users with and without disabilities. Given the success of social VR applications that support user-created worlds, it is important to consider how we can empower users in building inclusive virtual worlds by investigating how tools for world building can be built to better support collaborations between users with and without disabilities. As such, this position paper provides a brief discussion of existing research into important factors that should be considered during such collaborations, and possible future research directions.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Value Reflection: Motivation, Examples and The Role of Technology

Findings from existing research provide possible evidence that values are an important construct that should be part of the self-reflection process. However, many questions about value reflection remain unexplored. As such, this position paper aims to provide an overview of relevant research and frameworks, example studies on value reflection pursued by the authors, and design aspects that might both improve value reflection processes and provide a brief mapping of where and how technology could be of help.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

"We need to do more ... I need to do more": Augmenting Digital Media Consumption via Critical Reflection to Increase Compassion and Promote Prosocial Attitudes and Behaviors

Much HCI research on prompting prosocial behaviors focuses on methods for increasing empathy. However, increased empathy may have unintended negative consequences. Our work offers an alternative solution that encourages critical reflection for nurturing compassion, which involves motivation and action to help others. In a between-subject experiment, participants (N=60) viewed a climate change documentary while receiving no prompts (CON), reflective prompts to focus on their emotions (RE) or surprises (RS). State compassion, critical reflection, and motivation to act or learn were measured at the end of the session (post-video) and two weeks later (follow-up). Despite participants' condition not affecting compassion, critical reflection was positively correlated with post-video state compassion. RE and RS participants demonstrated deeper reflection and reported higher motivation to learn post-video, and more prosocial behavioral changes during follow-up. RS participants reported better follow-up recall than RE participants. We conclude by discussing implications on designing technology to support compassion and longer-term critical reflection.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2022

Towards Understanding Barriers and Mitigation Strategies of Software Engineers with Non-traditional Educational and Occupational Backgrounds

The traditional path to a software engineering career usually involves a post-secondary diploma in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. However, many individuals working as software engineers take a non-traditional path to their careers, starting from other industries or fields of study. This paper explores the barriers that individuals with non-traditional educational and occupational backgrounds face when pursuing a software engineering career and proposes potential strategies to overcome those barriers. A two-stage methodology was used, consisting of an exploratory study followed by a follow-up survey. The exploratory study consisted of a grounded-theory-based qualitative analysis of relevant Reddit data to yield a framework around the barriers and possible mitigation strategies. These findings were then supplemented through a follow-up survey. Understanding these barriers and what strategies could be effective is an important step towards making software engineering more accessible to individuals with non-traditional backgrounds. In addition to fostering functional diversity, this might also serve to tackle labor shortages within the software engineering industry.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2021

Exploring Individual and Collaborative Storytelling in an Introductory Creative Coding Class

Teaching programming through storytelling is a popular pedagogical approach and an active area of research. However, most previous work in this area focused on K-12 students using block-based programming. Little, if any, work has examined the approach with university students using text-based programming. This experience report fills this gap. Specifically, we report our experience administering three storytelling assignments -- two individual and one collaborative -- in an introductory computer science class with 49 undergraduate students using $\textit{p5.js}$, a text-based programming library for creative coding. Our work contributes an understanding of students' experiences with the three authoring processes and a set of recommendations to improve the administration of and experience with individual and collaborative storytelling with text-based programming.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2021

Using Comics to Introduce and Reinforce Programming Concepts in CS1

Recent work investigated the potential of comics to support the teaching and learning of programming concepts and suggested several ways $coding$ $strips$, a form of comic strip with its corresponding code, can be used. Building on this work, we tested the recommended use cases of $coding$ $strip$ in an undergraduate introductory computer science course at a large comprehensive university. At the end of the course, we surveyed students to assess their experience and found they benefited in various ways. Our work contributes a demonstration of the various ways comics can be used in introductory CS courses and an initial understanding of benefits and challenges with using comics in computing education gleaned from an analysis of students' survey responses and code submissions.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2021

Rethinking Immersive Virtual Reality and Empathy

In this position paper, we aim to spark more discussions surrounding the use of empathy as the intended outcome of many studies on immersive virtual reality experiences. As a construct, empathy has many significant flaws that may lead to unintended and negative outcomes, going against our original goal of employing these technologies for the betterment of society. We highlight the possible advantages of designing for rational compassion instead, and propose alternative research directions and outcome measurements for immersive virtual reality that urgently warrant our attention.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2021

Can a Humorous Conversational Agent Enhance Learning Experience and Outcomes?

Previous studies have highlighted the benefits of pedagogical conversational agents using socially-oriented conversation with students. In this work, we examine the effects of a conversational agent's use of affiliative and self-defeating humour -- considered conducive to social well-being and enhancing interpersonal relationships -- on learners' perception of the agent and attitudes towards the task. Using a between-subjects protocol, 58 participants taught a conversational agent about rock classification using a learning-by-teaching platform, the Curiosity Notebook. While all agents were curious and enthusiastic, the style of humour was manipulated such that the agent either expressed an affiliative style, a self-defeating style, or no humour. Results demonstrate that affiliative humour can significantly increase motivation and effort, while self-defeating humour, although enhancing effort, negatively impacts enjoyment. Findings further highlight the importance of understanding learner characteristics when using humour.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2021

Curiosity Notebook: The Design of a Research Platform for Learning by Teaching

While learning by teaching is a popular pedagogical technique, it is a learning phenomenon that is difficult to study due to variability in the tutor-tutee pairings and learning environments. In this paper, we introduce the Curiosity Notebook, a web-based research infrastructure for studying learning by teaching via the use of a teachable agent. We describe and provide rationale for the set of features that are essential for such a research infrastructure, outline how these features have evolved over two design iterations of the Curiosity Notebook and through two studies -- a 4-week field study with 12 elementary school students interacting with a NAO robot and an hour-long online observational study with 41 university students interacting with an agent -- demonstrate the utility of our platform for making observations of learning-by-teaching phenomena in diverse learning environments. Based on these findings, we conclude the paper by reflecting on our design evolution and envisioning future iterations of the Curiosity Notebook.

cs.HC↗