@inproceedings{ng-etal-2025-understanding,
    title = "Understanding Writing Assistants for Scientific Figure Captions: A Thematic Analysis",
    author = "Ng, Ho Yin Sam  and
      Hsu, Ting-Yao  and
      Min, Jiyoo  and
      Kim, Sungchul  and
      Rossi, Ryan A.  and
      Yu, Tong  and
      Jung, Hyunggu  and
      Huang, Ting-Hao Kenneth",
    editor = "Padmakumar, Vishakh  and
      Gero, Katy  and
      Wambsganss, Thiemo  and
      Sterman, Sarah  and
      Huang, Ting-Hao  and
      Zhou, David  and
      Chung, John",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Intelligent and Interactive Writing Assistants (In2Writing 2025)",
    month = may,
    year = "2025",
    address = "Albuquerque, New Mexico, US",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/fix-sig-urls/2025.in2writing-1.1/",
    pages = "1--10",
    ISBN = "979-8-89176-239-8",
    abstract = "Scientific figure captions are essential for communicating complex data but are often overlooked, leading to unclear or redundant descriptions. While many studies focus on generating captions as an `output', little attention has been given to the writer{'}s process of crafting captions for scientific figures. This study examines how researchers use AI-generated captions to support caption writing. Through thematic analysis of interviews and video recordings with 18 participants from diverse disciplines, we identified four key themes: (1) integrating captions with figures and text, (2) bridging gaps between language proficiency and domain expertise, (3) leveraging multiple AI-generated suggestions, and (4) adapting to diverse writing norms. These findings provide actionable design insights for developing AI writing assistants that better support researchers in creating effective scientific figure captions."
}