My research lies in human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, social computing, and video games. At present, I'm mostly exploring the intersection of governance and play in contexts such as video games, content moderation, and metaverse.
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Grants that support my research
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National Science Foundation. 2024-2027. SaTC: CORE: Small: Community-Based Support for Learning Community Norms. #2334934. PI: Yubo Kou. $590,840
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National Science Foundation. 2023-2026. SaTC: CORE: Small: Investigating and Mitigating Harmful Design in User-Generated Virtual World through Design Moderation. #2326505. PIs: Yubo Kou, Sunhye Bai, and Xinning Gui. $598,705.
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National Science Foundation. 2020-2024. CHS: Small: Investigating and De-signing for Behavioral Improvement in Online Community Moderation. #2006854. PI: Yubo Kou. $249,420 + REU Supplement ($16,000). $265,420.
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Primary research projects
Harmful Design in User-Generated Virtual World: While metaverse platforms promise enriched, immersive experiences, an urgent question is who creates content of varying degrees of complexities for them and how to regulate such content.
Related Publications:
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Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2023. Harmful Design in the Metaverse and How to Mitigate it: A Case Study of User-Generated Virtual Worlds on Roblox. DIS'2023.
Gaming and eSports: When it comes to gaming, I'm a gamer first and a researcher second. I'm interested in knowing more about all aspects of gaming. In the past with collaborators, I've worked on topics such as teamwork, self-tracking, toxic behavior, governance, progression, streaks, and streaming.
Recent publications:
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Renkai Ma, Yao Li, and Yubo Kou. 2023. Transparency, Fairness, and Coping: How Players Experience Moderation in Multiplayer Online Games. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Hamburg, Germany.
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Renkai Ma, Xinning Gui, and Yubo Kou. 2022. Esports Governance: An Analysis of Rule Enforcement in League of Legends. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. (CSCW’2022)
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Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2020. Emotion Regulation in eSports Gaming: a Qualitative Study of League of Legends. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4, CSCW2, Article 158, (October, 2020). (CSCW’2020)
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Xun Zhang, Xinning Gui, Yubo Kou, and Yukun Li. 2020. Mobile Collocated Gaming: Collaborative Play and Meaning-Making on a University Campus. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4, CSCW2, Article 142, (October, 2020). (CSCW’2020)
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Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2018. Entangled with Numbers: Quantified Self and Others in a Team-Based Online Game, PACMHCI, 2, CSCW, Article 93, (November 2018). (CSCW'2018 second cycle)
User-Punishment Interaction and Moderation Experience: We study how design efforts such as moderation could make online communities a better place. A focus is on understanding and supporting punished users.
Recent publications:
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Renkai Ma, Yao Li, and Yubo Kou. 2023. Transparency, Fairness, and Coping: How Players Experience Moderation in Multiplayer Online Games. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Hamburg, Germany.
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Renkai Ma, Yue You, Xinning Gui, and Yubo Kou. 2023. How Users Experience Moderation?: A Systematic Literature Review. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. (CSCW'2023)
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Renkai Ma and Yubo Kou. 2023. ”Defaulting to boilerplate answers, they didnt engage in a genuine conversation”: Dimensions of Transparency Design in Creator Moderation. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. (CSCW’2023)
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Renkai Ma and Yubo Kou. 2022. “I am not a YouTuber who can make whatever video I want. I have to keep appeasing algorithms”: Bureaucracy of Creator Moderation on YouTube. CSCW'2022 Poster, online.
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Renkai Ma and Yubo Kou. 2022. "I'm not sure what difference is between their content and mine, other than the person itself": A Study of Fairness Perception of Content Moderation on YouTube. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. (CSCW’2022)
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Renkai Ma, Xinning Gui, and Yubo Kou. 2022. Esports Governance: An Analysis of Rule Enforcement in League of Legends. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. (CSCW’2022)
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Renkai Ma and Yubo Kou. 2021. “How advertiser-friendly is my video?”: YouTuber’s Socioeconomic Interactions with Algorithmic Content Moderation. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. (CSCW'2021)
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Yubo Kou. 2021. Punishment and Its Discontents: An Analysis of Permanent Ban in an Online Game Community. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. (CSCW'2021)
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Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2021. Flag and Flaggability in Automated Moderation: the Case of Reporting Toxic Behavior in an Online Game Community. CHI'2021
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Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2020. Mediating Community-AI Interaction through Situated Explanation: The Case of AI-Led Moderation. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4, CSCW2, Article 102, (October, 2020). (CSCW’2020)
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Yubo Kou. 2020. Toxic Behaviors in Team-Based Competitive Gaming: The Case of League of Legends. ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY), Ottawa, Canada.
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Other less frequently updated projects
Culture and technology use: I seek to explore the links between technology use and its cultural conditioning. I'm interested in how "local" perspectives or frameworks could more suitably interpret seemingly confusing human-computer interaction phenomena. Particularly, my previous work has explored how Confucian values are manifested in people's practices around censorship and use of visual languages such as emoji.
Recent publications:
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Xianghua Ding, Yubo Kou, Yiwen Xu, Peng Zhang. 2022. “As Uploaders, We Have the Responsibility”: Individualized Professionalization of Bilibili Uploaders. CHI'2022
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Yuan Wang, Yukun Li, Xinning Gui, Yubo Kou, and Fenglian Liu. 2019. Culturally-Embedded Visual Literacy: A Study of Impression Management via Emoticon, Emoji, Sticker, and Meme on Social Media in China. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 3, CSCW, Article 68, (November 2019). (CSCW'2019)
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Yubo Kou, Bryan Semaan, and Bonnie Nardi. 2017. A Confucian Look at Internet Censorship in China, International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) – INTERACT, Mumbai, India.
Community and technology: I'm interested in understanding and designing technology to support community development. Emerging or distributed forms of communities engender new questions related to socialization, professionalization, and governance.
Recent publications:
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Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2020. Mediating Community-AI Interaction through Situated Explanation: The Case of AI-Led Moderation. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4, CSCW2, Article 102, (October, 2020). (CSCW’2020)
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Yubo Kou and Colin M. Gray. 2018. Towards Professionalization in an Online Community of Emerging Occupation: Discourses among UX Practitioners. ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP), FL, USA.
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Yubo Kou, Colin M. Gray, Austin L. Toombs, and Robin S. Adams. 2018. Understanding Social Roles in an Online Community of Volatile Practice: A Study of User Experience Practitioners on Reddit, ACM Transactions on Social Computing.
AI in context: Though it could be broadly connected to prior topics, this interest concerns specifically the contexts in which people interact with technologies clustered under the umbrella term of "artificial Intelligence."
Recent publications:
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Yue You, Yubo Kou, Xianghua Ding, Xinning Gui. 2021. The Medical Authority of AI: A Study of AI-enabled Consumer-Facing Health Technology. CHI'2021
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Chun-Hua Tsai, Yue You, Xinning Gui, Yubo Kou, John M. Carroll. 2021. Exploring and Promoting Diagnostic Transparency and Explainability in Online Symptom Checkers. CHI'2021
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Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2020. Mediating Community-AI Interaction through Situated Explanation: The Case of AI-Led Moderation. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4, CSCW2, Article 102, (October, 2020). (CSCW’2020)
Social Media Discourses: This line of work seeks to situate online discourses, including those about conspiracy theorizing, propaganda, and fake news, in their conversational, social, or cultural contexts.
Recent publications:
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Yubo Kou, Xinning Gui, Yunan Chen, and Kathleen Pine. 2017. Conspiracy Talk on Social Media: Collective Sensemaking during a Public Health Crisis, PACMHCI, 1, CSCW, Article 61, (November 2017). (CSCW'2018 online first).
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Yubo Kou, Yong Ming Kow, Xinning Gui, and Waikuen Cheng. 2017. One Social Movement, Two Social Media Sites: A Comparative Study of Public Discourses, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 26, 4-6, 807-836.