Vrushank Phadnis

Vrushank Phadnis

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    Preview abstract Eye-based interaction techniques for extended reality, such as gaze and pinch, are simple to use however suffer from input precision issues. We present H2E, a fine and coarse-grained pointing technique that cascades Hand, Head, and Eye inputs. As users initiate a pinch gesture, a cursor appears at the gaze point that can be dragged by head pointing before pinch confirmation. This has the potential advantage that it can add a precision component without changing the semantics of the technique. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of the technique. Furthermore, we present an evaluation of our method in a Fitts-based user study, exploring the speed-accuracy trade-offs against a gaze and pinch interaction baseline. View details
    InstructPipe: Generating Visual Blocks Pipelines with Human Instructions and LLMs
    Zhongyi Zhou
    Jing Jin
    Xiuxiu Yuan
    Jun Jiang
    Jingtao Zhou
    Yiyi Huang
    Kristen Wright
    Jason Mayes
    Mark Sherwood
    Alex Olwal
    Ram Iyengar
    Na Li
    Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), ACM, pp. 23
    Preview abstract Visual programming has the potential of providing novice programmers with a low-code experience to build customized processing pipelines. Existing systems typically require users to build pipelines from scratch, implying that novice users are expected to set up and link appropriate nodes from a blank workspace. In this paper, we introduce InstructPipe, an AI assistant for prototyping machine learning (ML) pipelines with text instructions. We contribute two large language model (LLM) modules and a code interpreter as part of our framework. The LLM modules generate pseudocode for a target pipeline, and the interpreter renders the pipeline in the node-graph editor for further human-AI collaboration. Both technical and user evaluation (N=16) shows that InstructPipe empowers users to streamline their ML pipeline workflow, reduce their learning curve, and leverage open-ended commands to spark innovative ideas. View details
    Experiencing InstructPipe: Building Multi-modal AI Pipelines via Prompting LLMs and Visual Programming
    Zhongyi Zhou
    Jing Jin
    Xiuxiu Yuan
    Jun Jiang
    Jingtao Zhou
    Yiyi Huang
    Kristen Wright
    Jason Mayes
    Mark Sherwood
    Alex Olwal
    Ram Iyengar
    Na Li
    Extended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, pp. 5
    Preview abstract Foundational multi-modal models have democratized AI access, yet the construction of complex, customizable machine learning pipelines by novice users remains a grand challenge. This paper demonstrates a visual programming system that allows novices to rapidly prototype multimodal AI pipelines. We first conducted a formative study with 58 contributors and collected 236 proposals of multimodal AI pipelines that served various practical needs. We then distilled our findings into a design matrix of primitive nodes for prototyping multimodal AI visual programming pipelines, and implemented a system with 65 nodes. To support users' rapid prototyping experience, we built InstructPipe, an AI assistant based on large language models (LLMs) that allows users to generate a pipeline by writing text-based instructions. We believe InstructPipe enhances novice users onboarding experience of visual programming and the controllability of LLMs by offering non-experts a platform to easily update the generation. View details
    The Work Avatar Face-Off: Knowledge Worker Preferences for Realism in Meetings
    Kristin Moore
    22nd IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) (2023) (to appear)
    Preview abstract While avatars have grown in popularity in social settings, their use in the workplace is still debatable. We conducted a large-scale survey to evaluate knowledge worker sentiment towards avatars, particularly the effects of realism on their acceptability for work meetings. Our survey of 2509 knowledge workers from multiple countries rated five avatar styles for use by managers, known colleagues and unknown colleagues. In all scenarios, participants favored higher realism, but fully realistic avatars were sometimes perceived as uncanny. Less realistic avatars were rated worse when interacting with an unknown colleague or manager, as compared to a known colleague. Avatar acceptability varied by country, with participants from the United States and South Korea rating avatars more favorably. We supplemented our quantitative findings with a thematic analysis of open-ended responses to provide a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing work avatar choices. In conclusion, our results show that realism had a significant positive correlation with acceptability. Non-realistic avatars were seen as fun and playful, but only suitable for occasional use. View details