Related papers: Exploring Current User Web Search Behaviours in An…
There is a growing demand for transparency in search engines to understand how search results are curated and to enhance users' trust. Prior research has introduced search result explanations with a focus on how to explain, assuming…
We have developed a conversational recommendation system designed to help users navigate through a set of limited options to find the best choice. Unlike many internet scale systems that use a singular set of search terms and return a…
Proactive dialogue systems, related to a wide range of real-world conversational applications, equip the conversational agent with the capability of leading the conversation direction towards achieving pre-defined targets or fulfilling…
With the rise of voice assistants and an increase in mobile search usage, natural language has become an important query language. So far, most of the current systems are not able to process these queries because of the vagueness and…
Recommender systems are software applications that help users find items of interest in situations of information overload in a personalized way, using knowledge about the needs and preferences of individual users. In conversational…
The use of natural language interfaces in the field of human-computer interaction is undergoing intense study through dedicated scientific and industrial research. The latest contributions in the field, including deep learning approaches…
Contextual retrieval is a critical technique for today's search engines in terms of facilitating queries and returning relevant information. This paper reports on the development and evaluation of a system designed to tackle some of the…
The use of conversational assistants to search for information is becoming increasingly more popular among the general public, pushing the research towards more advanced and sophisticated techniques. In the last few years, in particular,…
In the last decade, conversational search has attracted considerable attention. However, most research has focused on systems that can support a \emph{single} searcher. In this paper, we explore how systems can support \emph{multiple}…
Chatbots are conversational software applications designed to interact dialectically with users for a plethora of different purposes. Surprisingly, these colloquial agents have only recently been coupled with computational models of…
With the advancement of Large-Language Models (LLMs) and Large Vision-Language Models (LVMs), agents have shown significant capabilities in various tasks, such as data analysis, gaming, or code generation. Recently, there has been a surge…
Voice assistants have been successfully adopted for simple, routine tasks, such as asking for the weather or setting an alarm. However, as people get more familiar with voice assistants, they may increase their expectations for more complex…
Information-seeking dialogues span a wide range of questions, from simple factoid to complex queries that require exploring multiple facets and viewpoints. When performing exploratory searches in unfamiliar domains, users may lack…
Conversational agents have become ubiquitous, ranging from goal-oriented systems for helping with reservations to chit-chat models found in modern virtual assistants. In this survey paper, we explore this fascinating field. We look at some…
In conversational search, agents can interact with users by asking clarifying questions to increase their chance to find better results. Many recent works and shared tasks in both NLP and IR communities have focused on identifying the need…
Using online information discovery as a case study, in this position paper we discuss the need to design, develop, and deploy (conversational) agents that can -- non-intrusively -- guide children in their quest for online resources rather…
Secondary school students enrolled in the AP Computer Science Principles (CSP) course commonly utilize web resources (e.g., tutorials, Q\&A sites) to better understand key concepts in the curriculum. The primary obstacle to using these…
In this paper we describe the requirements and early system design for a smart conversational agent that can assist older adults in the reminiscence process. The practice of reminiscence has well documented benefits for the mental, social…
Data users need relevant context and research expertise to effectively search for and identify relevant datasets. Leading data providers, such as the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), offer standardized…
It is widely known that people become better at an activity if they perform this activity long and often. Yet, the question is whether being active in related areas like communicating online, writing blog articles or commenting on community…