Yun Wang

About

I am a senior researcher in the Data, Knowledge, Intelligence (DKI) Area at Microsoft Research Asia. My research lies in the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Information Visualization (VIS), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Data Science (DS). My work facilitates Human-Data Interaction, Human-AI Collaboration, and Data Storytelling through an interdisciplinary approach [G Scholar].

I obtained my Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology under the supervision of Prof. Huamin Qu and Prof. Qiong Luo. During my Ph.D. study, I visited Oxford University as a research scholar, hosted by Prof. Min Chen. Before that, I received my B.Eng. in Software Engineering from Fudan University and B.Sc. in Computer Science (Joint Degree) from University College Dublin.

More specifically, my research in the last 10 years focuses on enhancing humans’ communication with visualizations facilitated by AI advances.

• AI-Powered Creativity: easing the creation of visual storytelling with AI techniques to facilitate humans’ information comprehension and communication, including:
  • Infographics [InfoNice, DataShot, Text-to-viz, TimelineReuse, ChartReuse] and interactive web pages [Vispaper, NetworkNarratives]
  • Motion graphics [InfoMotion, Clickstream, AniVis, Foreshadowing, Narration-Animation Interplay, WonderFlow, Live Charts, Wakey-Wakey, Emordle, GeoCamera, Data Player, Piet]
• Human-AI Collaboration:  simplifying the interaction workflows to improve humans and AIs’ combined creativity and productivity
  • Learn from humans’ knowledge, preferences, and experiences through comparison, assessment, and visual programming — an interview study on people’s expectations
  • Facilitate humans’ analysis workflow [Story Synthesis, GridBook, Multivision, Notable]
  • Enhance humans’ creativity workflow, including ideation and planning [Inkplanner] and authoring [Galvis, VisTalk]
  • Develop research frameworks and survey on human-AI Collaboration [Where are we so far?] and our taxonomy on AI4VIS

For detailed information, please refer to the recent publications http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/research/people/wangyun/publications/ and Google Scholar ‪page.

We are hiring intern students! Please send emails to wangyun@microsoft.com for potential collaborations.

– News –

May 2024 Our two papers accepted by CHI 2024 won Best Paper and Honorable Mention Award!

Mar 2024  Our paper Piet for facilitating color authoring, and our survey on Data Storytelling Tools from the Perspective of Human-AI Collaboration was accepted by CHI 2024!

Oct 2023   Our paper Data Player and Emordle were presented at IEEE VIS 2023.

Oct 2023   Our paper Wakey-Wakey was presented at ACM UIST 2023.

Apr 2023   Our paper GeoCamera, Notable, and NetworkNarratives were presented at CHI 2023.

Oct 2022   Our paper Galvis has won Best Paper honorable mention in CIKM 2022. Congrats to Leixian and co-authors.

Oct 2022   Our paper ChartStamp was presented at ACM MM!

Oct 2022   Our paper VisTalk and the AI4VIS survey was presented at IEEE VIS 2022.

Sep 2022   My Intern Haotian Li has been awarded 2022 Microsoft Research PhD Fellow. Only 12 awardees in Asia. Congrats!

Jun 2022   I have presented Investigating the Role and Interplay of Narrations and Animations in Data Videos at EuroVis 2022, Rome.

Apr 2022   Our research OneLabeler: A Flexible System for Building Data Labeling Tools was presented at CHI 2022, New Orleans.

Mar 2022   Our research GridBook: Natural Language Formulas for the Spreadsheet Grid was presented at IUI!

Feb 2022   We have three papers accepted for presentation at ACM CHI 2022, EuroVis 2022, and IUI 2022.

Oct 2021   Our paper on reusing infographic charts and designing analytical dashboards with deep learning was presented at IEEE VIS 2021.

Oct 2021   My Intern Aoyu Wu has been awarded 2021 Microsoft Research PhD Fellow. Only 11 awardees in Asia. Congrats!

Jul 2021   Invited Talk @ ChinaVis 2021: AI-Powered Design of Data Storytelling.

Jul 2021   Our paper, Multivision: Designing Analytical Dashboards with Deep Learning-Based Recommendation and A Mixed-Initiative Approach to Reusing Infographic Charts is accepted by VIS 2021.

Jul 2021   Check out our survey on AI4VIS: Survey on Artificial Intelligence Approaches for Data Visualization, accepted by TVCG.

Jun 2021   Our technique InfoMotion, generating animations automatically from static infographics, is presented at EuroVis 2021.

May 2021   Our Technique LQ2 for automated suggesting of chart layout is presented at CHI 2021.

Nov 2020   Invited Talk @ ChinaVis 2020: (1) Recent Advances of AI for VIS. (2) AI-Powered Design of Visualizations and Infographics.

Oct 2020   We have 2 papers presented at IEEE VIS conference. (1) Chartem: Reviving Chart Images with Data Embedding and (2) Improving Engagement of Animated Visualization with Visual Foreshadowing.

Aug 2020   Invited Talks @ CAD&CG 2020: How to Conduct Research on Data Storytelling

Oct 2019   This year we have 6 papers presented at IEEE VIS conference. I presented three of them!

Jul 2019   Invited Talk @ ChinaVis 2019: Authoring and Assessing Visualizations for Data Storytelling.

Aug 2019   IEEE CG&A has published our viewpoints “An Emotional Response to the Value of Visualization”!

Aug 2019   Our research was featured the cover story of IEEE CG&A. Thanks Gary Singh for the interview!

– Media –

[MSRA News] Democratize Data Visualization | Automatic Generation of Visualization and Charts (Chinese Article)

[CG&A – Cover Story] Hungry for data (Interviewed by Gary Singh)

[MSRA News] CHI 2018 Conference Sharing [1] [2] (Chinese)

[HKUST CSE Department – Research Updates] Data Edibilization (Chinese)

[HKUST CSE Department – News] Google Anita Borg Scholarship