Augmenting Scientific Papers with Just-in-Time, Position-Sensitive Definitions of Terms and Symbols
This addresses the problem of comprehension barriers for researchers reading scientific papers, though it is incremental as it builds on existing interface design concepts.
The paper tackles the difficulty of reading scientific papers by introducing ScholarPhi, an augmented reading interface that provides just-in-time definitions and visualizations of terms and symbols, with a usability study showing it helps researchers of all experience levels read papers effectively.
Despite the central importance of research papers to scientific progress, they can be difficult to read. Comprehension is often stymied when the information needed to understand a passage resides somewhere else: in another section, or in another paper. In this work, we envision how interfaces can bring definitions of technical terms and symbols to readers when and where they need them most. We introduce ScholarPhi, an augmented reading interface with four novel features: (1) tooltips that surface position-sensitive definitions from elsewhere in a paper, (2) a filter over the paper that "declutters" it to reveal how the term or symbol is used across the paper, (3) automatic equation diagrams that expose multiple definitions in parallel, and (4) an automatically generated glossary of important terms and symbols. A usability study showed that the tool helps researchers of all experience levels read papers. Furthermore, researchers were eager to have ScholarPhi's definitions available to support their everyday reading.