Yalong Yang

Yalong Yang
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Yalong verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Verified
Yalong verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
Georgia Institute of Technology | GT · School of Interactive Computing

PhD

About

68
Publications
30,205
Reads
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1,427
Citations
Introduction
I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Before joining Georgia Tech, I spent two wonderful years at Virginia Tech as a faculty member. Prior to this, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Visual Computing Group at Harvard University, and received my Ph.D. from Human-Centred Computing Department, Monash University, Australia. My research encompasses a wide range of topics within the fields of Visualization (VIS), VR/AR, and HCI.
Additional affiliations
August 2021 - August 2023
Virginia Tech
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
October 2019 - August 2021
Harvard University
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Education
March 2015 - January 2019
Monash University (Australia)
Field of study
  • Visualization, Human-Computer Interaction
September 2012 - February 2015
Tianjin University
Field of study
  • Visualization, Machine Learning, Image Processing
September 2008 - June 2012
Tianjin University
Field of study
  • Software Engineering

Publications

Publications (68)
Preprint
Full-text available
Visual storytelling combines visuals and narratives to communicate important insights. While web-based visual storytelling is well-established, leveraging the next generation of digital technologies for visual storytelling, specifically immersive technologies, remains underexplored. We investigated the impact of the story viewpoint (from the audien...
Preprint
We built a spatial hybrid system that combines a personal computer (PC) and virtual reality (VR) for visual sensemaking, addressing limitations in both environments. Although VR offers immense potential for interactive data visualization (e.g., large display space and spatial navigation), it can also present challenges such as imprecise interaction...
Article
We built a spatial hybrid system that combines a personal computer (PC) and virtual reality (VR) for visual sensemaking, addressing limitations in both environments. Although VR offers immense potential for interactive data visualization (e.g., large display space and spatial navigation), it can also present challenges such as imprecise interaction...
Article
While augmented reality (AR) headsets provide entirely new ways of seeing and interacting with data, traditional computing devices can play a symbiotic role when used in conjunction with AR as a hybrid user interface. A promising use case for this setup is situated analytics. AR can provide embedded views that are integrated with their physical ref...
Article
With the commercialization of virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) devices, there is an increasing interest in combining immersive and non-immersive devices (e.g., desktop computers) for asymmetric collaborations. While such asymmetric settings have been examined in social platforms, significant questions around layout dimensionality in data-driven de...
Preprint
Effective personalized feedback is crucial for learning programming. However, providing personalized, real-time feedback in large programming classrooms poses significant challenges for instructors. This paper introduces SPHERE, an interactive system that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) and structured LLM output review to scale personalized...
Article
Composite visualization represents a widely embraced design that combines multiple visual representations to create an integrated view. However, the traditional approach of creating composite visualizations in immersive environments typically occurs asynchronously outside of the immersive space and is carried out by experienced experts. In this wor...
Preprint
With the commercialization of virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) devices, there is an increasing interest in combining immersive and non-immersive devices (e.g., desktop computers) for asymmetric collaborations. While such asymmetric settings have been examined in social platforms, significant questions around layout dimensionality in data-driven de...
Preprint
Full-text available
Composite visualization represents a widely embraced design that combines multiple visual representations to create an integrated view. However, the traditional approach of creating composite visualizations in immersive environments typically occurs asynchronously outside of the immersive space and is carried out by experienced experts. In this wor...
Article
Labels are widely used in augmented reality (AR) to display digital information. Ensuring the readability of AR labels requires placing them in an occlusion-free manner while keeping visual links legible, especially when multiple labels exist in the scene. Although existing optimization-based methods, such as force-based methods, are effective in m...
Preprint
Virtual reality (VR) has enriched the exhibition experience, yet curators and artists often face challenges in curation due to disagreements in the spatial arrangement of exhibits. Although VR applications permit audiences to express their reactions, these multimodal and semantically rich data remain underutilized in spatial arrangement deliberatio...
Preprint
Full-text available
The human genome is incredibly information-rich, consisting of approximately 25,000 protein-coding genes spread out over 3.2 billion nucleotide base pairs contained within 24 unique chromosomes. The genome is important in maintaining spatial context, which assists in understanding gene interactions and relationships. However, existing methods of ge...
Preprint
Full-text available
Data-driven stories seek to inform and persuade audiences through the use of data visualisations and engaging narratives. These stories have now been highly optimised to be viewed on desktop and mobile computers. In contrast, while immersive virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) technologies have been shown to be more persuasive, no clear standard...
Preprint
Full-text available
Labels are widely used in augmented reality (AR) to display digital information. Ensuring the readability of AR labels requires placing them occlusion-free while keeping visual linkings legible, especially when multiple labels exist in the scene. Although existing optimization-based methods, such as force-based methods, are effective in managing AR...
Article
Full-text available
Data transformation is an essential step in data science. While experts primarily use programming to transform their data, there is an increasing need to support non-programmers with user interface-based tools. With the rapid development in interaction techniques and computing environments, we report our empirical findings about the effects of inte...
Article
Full-text available
Network visualizations are commonly used to analyze relationships in various contexts, such as social, biological, and geographical interactions. To efficiently explore a network visualization, the user needs to quickly navigate to different parts of the network and analyze local details. Recent advancements in display and interaction technologies...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper provided empirical knowledge of the user experience for using collaborative visualization in a distributed asymmetrical setting through controlled user studies. With the ability to access various computing devices, such as Virtual Reality (VR) head-mounted displays, scenarios emerge when collaborators have to or prefer to use different c...
Preprint
Full-text available
Network visualizations are commonly used to analyze relationships in various contexts. To efficiently explore a network visualization, the user needs to quickly navigate to different parts of the network and analyze local details. Recent advancements in display and interaction technologies inspire new visions for improved visualization and interact...
Article
Full-text available
Most sports visualizations rely on a combination of spatial, highly temporal, and user-centric data, making sports a challenging target for visualization. Emerging technologies, such as augmented and mixed reality (AR/XR), have brought exciting opportunities along with new challenges for sports visualization. We share our experience working with sp...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Immersive Analytics has now fully emerged as a research topic in the Visualisation and Human-Computer Interaction research communities. While evidence of its benefits has been accumulating, we have still attained only a basic understanding of the extent to which they can support human sensemaking, This workshop aims to define a roadmap for new dire...
Preprint
Full-text available
Most sports visualizations rely on a combination of spatial, highly temporal, and user-centric data, making sports a challenging target for visualization. Emerging technologies, such as augmented and mixed reality (AR/XR), have brought exciting opportunities along with new challenges for sports visualization. We share our experience working with sp...
Article
Full-text available
Sports game data is becoming increasingly complex, often consisting of multivariate data such as player performance stats, historical team records, and athletes' positional tracking information. While numerous visual analytics systems have been developed for sports analysts to derive insights, few tools target fans to improve their understanding an...
Preprint
Full-text available
Sports game data is becoming increasingly complex, often consisting of multivariate data such as player performance stats, historical team records, and athletes' positional tracking information. While numerous visual analytics systems have been developed for sports analysts to derive insights, few tools target fans to improve their understanding an...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Matrix visualizations are widely used to display large-scale network, tabular, set, or sequential data. They typically only encode a single value per cell, e.g., through color. However, this can greatly limit the visualizations’ utility when exploring multivariate data, where each cell represents a data point with multiple values (referred to as de...
Preprint
Full-text available
Matrix visualizations are widely used to display large-scale network, tabular, set, or sequential data. They typically only encode a single value per cell, e.g., through color. However, this can greatly limit the visualizations' utility when exploring multivariate data, where each cell represents a data point with multiple values (referred to as de...
Article
Full-text available
The metaverse is a visual world that blends the physical world and digital world. At present, the development of metaverse is still in the early stage, and there lacks a framework for the visual construction and exploration of metaverse. In this paper, we propose a framework that summarizes how graphics, interaction, and visualization techniques su...
Preprint
Full-text available
There are many methods for projecting spherical maps onto the plane. Interactive versions of these projections allow the user to centre the region of interest. However, the effects of such interaction have not previously been evaluated. In a study with 120 participants we find interaction provides significantly more accurate area, direction and dis...
Article
Full-text available
Augmented Reality (AR) embeds digital information into objects of the physical world. Data can be shown in-situ, thereby enabling real-time visual comparisons and object search in real-life user tasks, such as comparing products and looking up scores in a sports game. While there have been studies on designing AR interfaces for situated information...
Preprint
Full-text available
Augmented Reality (AR) embeds digital information into objects of the physical world. Data can be shown in-situ, thereby enabling real-time visual comparisons and object search in real-life user tasks, such as comparing products and looking up scores in a sports game. While there have been studies on designing AR interfaces for situated information...
Preprint
Full-text available
We present how to integrate Design Sprints and project-based learning into introductory visualization courses. A design sprint is a unique process based on rapid prototyping and user testing to define goals and validate ideas before starting costly development. The well-defined, interactive, and time-constrained design cycle makes design sprints a...
Article
Full-text available
We present how to integrate Design Sprints and project-based learning into introductory visualization courses. A design sprint is a unique process based on rapid prototyping and user testing to define goals and validate ideas before starting costly development. The well-defined, interactive, and time-constrained design cycle makes design sprints a...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Immersive Analytics is a quickly evolving field that unites several areas such as visualisation, immersive environments, and human-computer interaction to support human data analysis with emerging technologies. This research has thrived over the past years with multiple workshops, seminars, and a growing body of publications, spanning several confe...
Article
Full-text available
This paper surveys visualization and interaction techniques for geospatial networks from a total of 95 papers. Geospatial networks are graphs where nodes and links can be associated with geographic locations. Examples can include social networks, trade and migration, as well as traffic and transport networks. Visualizing geospatial networks poses n...
Preprint
Full-text available
We present an observational study to compare co-located and situated real-time visualizations in basketball free-throw training. Our goal is to understand the advantages and concerns of applying immersive visualization to real-world skill-based sports training and to provide insights for designing AR sports training systems. We design both a situat...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper surveys visualization and interaction techniques for geospatial networks from a total of 95 papers. Geospatial networks are graphs where nodes and links can be associated with geographic locations. Examples can include social networks, trade and migration, as well as traffic and transport networks. Visualizing geospatial networks poses n...
Article
Full-text available
Node-link diagrams are widely used to visualise networks. However, even the best network layout algorithms ultimately result in ’hairball’ visualisations when the graph reaches a certain degree of complexity, requiring simplification through aggregation or interaction (such as filtering) to remain usable. Until now, there has been little data to in...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract data has no natural scale and so interactive data visualizations must provide techniques to allow the user to choose their viewpoint and scale. Such techniques are well established in desktop visualization tools. The two most common techniques are zoom+pan and overview+detail. However, how best to enable the analyst to navigate and view ab...
Preprint
Full-text available
data has no natural scale and so interactive data visualizations must provide techniques to allow the user to choose their viewpoint and scale. Such techniques are well established in desktop visualization tools. The two most common techniques are zoom+pan and overview+detail. However, how best to enable the analyst to navigate and view abstract da...
Preprint
Full-text available
Node-link diagrams are widely used to visualise networks. However, even the best network layout algorithms ultimately result in 'hairball' visualisations when the graph reaches a certain degree of complexity, requiring simplification through aggregation or interaction (such as filtering) to remain usable. Until now, there has been little data to in...
Preprint
Full-text available
We introduce Tilt Map, a novel interaction technique for intuitively transitioning between 2D and 3D map visualisations in immersive environments. Our focus is visualising data associated with areal features on maps, for example, population density by state. Tilt Map transitions from 2D choropleth maps to 3D prism maps to 2D bar charts to overcome...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Visualisations are commonly used to understand social, biological and other kinds of networks. Currently we do not know how to effectively present network data to people who are blind or have low-vision (BLV). We ran a controlled study with 8 BLV participants comparing four tactile representations: organic node-link diagram, grid node-link diagram,...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We present our initial investigation of key challenges and potentials of immersive analytics (IA) in sports, which we call SportsXR. Sports are usually highly dynamic and col-laborative by nature, which makes real-time decision making ubiquitous. However, there is limited support for athletes and coaches to make informed and clear-sighted decisions...
Preprint
Full-text available
We present our initial investigation of key challenges and potentials of immersive analytics (IA) in sports, which we call SportsXR. Sports are usually highly dynamic and collaborative by nature, which makes real-time decision making ubiquitous. However, there is limited support for athletes and coaches to make informed and clear-sighted decisions...
Preprint
Full-text available
Visualisations are commonly used to understand social, biological and other kinds of networks. Currently, we do not know how to effectively present network data to people who are blind or have low-vision (BLV). We ran a controlled study with 8 BLV participants comparing four tactile representations: organic node-link diagram, grid node-link diagram...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We have compared three common visualisations for hierarchical quantitative data, treemaps, icicle plots and sunburst charts as well as a semicircular variant of sunburst charts we call the sundown chart. In a pilot study, we found that the sunburst chart was least preferred. In a controlled study with 12 participants, we compared treemaps, icicle p...
Preprint
Full-text available
Immersive virtual- and augmented-reality headsets can overlay a flat image against any surface or hang virtual objects in the space around the user. The technology is rapidly improving and may, in the long term, replace traditional flat panel displays in many situations. When displays are no longer intrinsically flat, how should we use the space ar...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper explores different ways to render world-wide geographic maps in virtual reality (VR). We compare: (a) a 3D exocentric globe, where the user's viewpoint is outside the globe; (b) a flat map (rendered to a plane in VR); (c) an egocentric 3D globe, with the viewpoint inside the globe; and (d) a curved map, created by projecting the map onto...
Preprint
Full-text available
Showing flows of people and resources between multiple geographic locations is a challenging visualisation problem. We conducted two quantitative user studies to evaluate different visual representations for such dense many-to-many flows. In our first study we compared a bundled node-link flow map representation and OD Maps [37] with a new visualis...
Preprint
Full-text available
We have compared three common visualisations for hierarchical quantitative data, treemaps, icicle plots and sunburst charts as well as a semicircular variant of sunburst charts we call the sundown chart. In a pilot study, we found that the sunburst chart was least preferred. In a controlled study with 12 participants, we compared treemaps, icicle p...
Preprint
Full-text available
This thesis develops and evaluates effective techniques for visualisation of flows (e.g. of people, trade, knowledge) between places on geographic maps. This geographically-embedded flow data contains information about geographic locations, and flows from origin locations to destination locations. We explored the design space of OD flow visualisati...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology are increasingly used for the analysis and visualisation of geospatial data. It has become simple to create an immersive three-dimensional AR or VR map with a combination of game engines (e.g., Unity), software development kits for streaming and rendering geospatial data (e.g., Mapbox), and...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this paper, we present our analysis of five expert interviews, each from a different application domain. Such analysis is crucial to understanding the real-world scenarios of analysing geographically-embedded flow data. The results of our analysis show that similar high-level tasks were conducted in different domains. To better describe the targ...
Thesis
Full-text available
This thesis develops and evaluates effective techniques for visualisation of flows (e.g. of people, trade, knowledge) between places on geographic maps. This geographically-embedded flow data contains information about geographic locations, and flows from origin locations to destination locations. This thesis explores the design space of OD flow vi...
Article
Full-text available
Immersive virtual- and augmented-reality headsets can overlay a flat image against any surface or hang virtual objects in the space around the user. The technology is rapidly improving and may, in the long term, replace traditional flat panel displays in many situations. When displays are no longer intrinsically flat, how should we use the space ar...
Article
Full-text available
This paper explores different ways to render world-wide geographic maps in virtual reality (VR). We compare: (a) a 3D exocentric globe, where the user’s viewpoint is outside the globe; (b) a flat map (rendered to a plane in VR); (c) an egocentric 3D globe, with the viewpoint inside the globe; and (d) a curved map, created by projecting the map onto...