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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​​

 

  • 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.

  • 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)

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  • Primary research projects

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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:

  • 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.

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​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:

  • 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.

  • 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)

  • 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)​

  • 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)

  • 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) 

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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:​

  • 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.

  • 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)​

  • 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)​

  • 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.

  • 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)

  • 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)

  • ​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)

  • 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)

  • 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

  • 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)

  • 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

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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: ​

  • Xianghua Ding, Yubo Kou, Yiwen Xu, Peng Zhang. 2022. “As Uploaders, We Have the Responsibility”: Individualized Professionalization of Bilibili Uploaders. CHI'2022

  • 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)​

  • 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.

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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:​

  • 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)​

  • 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. 

  • 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. 

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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:

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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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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:

  • 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).

  • 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. 

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