Thursday, 11 June 2026 Best Paper Award at ACM UMAP 2026 for UP FAMNIT researchers

Dr. Marko Tkalčič and Assist. Uroš Sergaš have received the Best Paper Award in the late-breaking results (LBR) track at the ACM UMAP 2026 conference, which is taking place from June 8 to 11 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

ACM UMAP (User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization) is one of the leading international conferences in the field of user modeling, personalization, and adaptive intelligent systems, and is ranked as an A-category conference according to the CORE ranking.

The award-winning paper, titled "Progress Feedback for Countering Selective Exposure: When Visualization Can Backfire", was developed in collaboration with researchers from Jönköping University, Sweden. The authors include Janine Riemann, Jasmin Alt, Uroš Sergaš, Marko Tkalčič, and Bruce Ferwerda.

The study explores whether different types of visual feedback about users’ news consumption can reduce selective exposure—i.e., the tendency to prefer information that confirms existing beliefs. The authors compared an analytic visualization of viewpoint balance with a metaphorical “growth” visualization framing exposure to opposing views as personal development. In a controlled experiment with 84 participants, neither approach significantly increased engagement with belief-opposing content compared to a control condition.

These results suggest that simple visualization-based feedback alone is not sufficient to meaningfully change users’ information-seeking behavior, and that more advanced or structural interventions may be needed.

We sincerely congratulate the award recipients on this achievement.