publications

2024

1. 

   What’s in a Niche? Migration Patterns in Online Communities

   Katherine Van Koevering , Meryl Ye , and Jon Kleinberg

   2024

   Abs URL

   Broad topics in online platforms represent a type of meso-scale between individual user-defined communities and the whole platform; they typically consist of related communities that address different facets of a shared topic. Users often engage with the topic by moving among the communities within a single category. We find that there are strong regularities in the aggregate pattern of user migration, in that the communities comprising a topic can be ordered in a partial order such that there is more migration in the direction defined by the partial order than against it. Ordered along this overall direction, we find that communities in aggregate become smaller, less toxic, and more linguistically distinctive, suggesting a picture consistent with specialization. We study directions defined not just in the movement of users but also by the movement of URLs and by the direction of mentions from one community to another; each of these produces a consistent direction, but the directions all differ from each other. We show how, collectively, these distinct trends help organize the structure of large online topics and compare our findings across both Reddit and Wikipedia and in simulations.

2023

1. 

   The Future of Home Appliances: A Study on the Robotic Toaster as a Domestic Social Robot

   Meryl Ye , Eike Schneiders , Wen-Ying Lee , and 1 more author

   In 2023 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) , 2023

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   Robotic appliances are continually being adopted into private homes. However, users have yet to exhibit the same acceptance towards domestic social robots. In this paper, we seek to bridge this issue by augmenting already-existing home appliances with capabilities mimicking social robots. We present a robotic toaster designed with animated movements to enhance and personalize the toast-making experience. Not only does the robotic toaster assist in completing the task itself, it also acts as a conscious agent with whom users may interact in a social and playful manner. Using a series of video vignettes, we identify three key themes of the robotic toaster that influence its relationship with users: these are related to (1) context awareness, (2) increased interactivity through initiative action, and (3) expression of personality despite limited degrees of freedom. Lastly, we discuss how the portrayal of home appliances with social characteristics can potentially serve as an introductory step for social robots in the home.

2. 

   Toaster Bot: Designing for Utility and Enjoyability in the Kitchen Space

   Meryl Ye , Rei (Wen-Ying) Lee , Johan Michalove , and 1 more author

   In Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction , 2023

   Abs URL

   Toasting bread is a seemingly mundane task that people perform on a daily basis, whether in a private kitchen area or in a communal dining space. This paper presents a robotic toaster, or "toaster bot", that is designed with animated movements to enhance the toast-making experience by not only assisting in completing the task itself but also by acting as a playful entity with whom users may interact. Furthermore, we aim to explore different roles and behaviors for the robotic toaster and how they are understood by the users.