Understanding and Supporting Academic Literature Review Workflows with LitSense

Abstract

It is increasingly difficult for researchers to navigate and reach an understanding of a growing body of literature in a field of research. While past works in HCI and data visualization sought to support such activities, few investigated how these workflows are conducted in practice and how practices change in view of support tools. This work contributes a more holistic understanding of this space via a user-centered approach encompassing (a) a formative study on literature review practices of 15 researchers which informed (b) the design of LitSense, a proof-of-concept tool to support literature review workflows, and (c) a week-long study with 12 researchers performing a literature review with Litsense.