Hat-trick at UMAP 2026

Three full papers have been accepted at the upcoming A-rated UMAP 2026 conference:

• Large-scale comparison of diversification methods in news recommendation in collaboration with DPG Media: Co-authored by Robin Verachtert and Kim Falk (DPG Media) and Christine Bauer, this paper reports a large-scale comparison of three diversification methods deployed on NU.nl (a Dutch online newspaper)—interleaving and two intra-list diversification (ILD) variants (TF-IDF, BERT). In the deployment on NU.nl, ILD with BERT reduced intra-list similarity, increased click-through rates, and improved perceived relevance—aligning diversification with editorial goals.

• Modeling preference heterogeneity: Led by Anouk van Kasteren, supervised by Judith Masthoff and Christine Bauer, and in collaboration with Marloes Vredenborg, this paper models preference heterogeneity for context-aware decision support during public transport disruptions, exploring how situational factors shape preferences and choices under real-world conditions.

• Study on tone in recommendation explanations: Led by Marloes Vredenborg, supervised by Judith Masthoff, Marit Bentvelzen, and Christine Bauer, this paper shows how situational context—especially urgency—shapes user preferences for explanation tone. It introduces a generalizable methodology for studying and designing context- and tone-aware explanations and, in the public-transport domain, offers qualitative insights into users’ needs and a validated set of explanation tones.