Ashlee Milton (they/she)

Ashlee Milton (they/she)

Ph.D. Candidate at Univeristy of Minnesota working at the intersection of human-computer interaction and information retrival

Publications

Unraveling Entangled Feeds: Rethinking Social Media Design to Enhance User Well-being

Social media platforms have rapidly adopted algorithmic curation with little consideration for the potential harm to users’ mental well-being. We present findings from design workshops… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Runnington, D., Terveen, L., Kaur, H., & Chancellor, S. (2026). " Unraveling Entangled Feeds: Rethinking Social Media Design to Enhance User Well-being " To Appear in Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/entangle2026chi.pdf

“How would I know what I would want from or with them?”: Supporting A-Spec Approaches to Developing Relationships Through Online Platforms

Online platforms have become a key avenue for forming new relationships, especially for queer individuals. However, some individuals, such as those in asexual and aromantic communities (A-Spec)… Read more

Recommended citation: Wang, K., Milton, A., Rosenbloom, L.N., Melder, E., Lerner, A., & DeVito, M.A. (2026). " "How would I know what I would want from or with them?": Supporting A-Spec Approaches to Developing Relationships Through Online Platforms " To Appear in Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

‘I’m Petting the Laptop, Which Has You Inside It’: Reflecting on Lived Experiences of Online Friendship

Online(-only) friendships have become increasingly common in daily lives post-COVID despite debates around their mental health benefits and equivalence to “real” relationships… Read more

Recommended citation: Yong, S., Milton, A., Suma Rosenberg, E., Chancellor, S., & Yarosh, S. (2025). " " I'm Petting the Laptop, Which Has You Inside It ": Reflecting on Lived Experiences of Online Friendship." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction.

Why They Come And Go: A Case Study of Productive Flyby Users and Their Rating Integrity Challenge in Movie Recommenders

Online(-only) friendships have become increasingly common in daily lives post-COVID despite debates around their mental health benefits and equivalence to “real” relationships… Read more

Recommended citation: Sun, R., Kong, R., Milton, A., Kluver, D., Paterson, I., & Konstan, J. A. (2025). " Why They Come And Go: A Case Study of Productive Flyby Users and Their Rating Integrity Challenge in Movie Recommenders." In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval.

Seeking in Cycles: How Users Leverage Personal Information Ecosystems to Find Mental Health Information

Information is crucial to how people understand their mental health and well-being, and many turn to online sources found through search engines and social media. We present an interview study… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Maestre, J.F., Roy, A., Umbach, R. & Chancellor, S. (2024). " Seeking in Cycles: How Users Leverage Personal Information Ecosystems to Find Mental Health Information " Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/SeekinginCycles.pdf

I See Me Here: Mental Health Content, Community, and Algorithmic Curation on TikTok

Social media platforms are a place where people look for information and social support for mental health, resulting in both positive and negative effects on users. TikTok has gained notoriety for an abundance of mental health content and discourse… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Ajmani, L., DeVito, M.A. & Chancellor, S. (2023). " I See Me Here: Mental Health Content, Community, and Algorithmic Curation on TikTok " Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/ISeeMeHere.pdf

Into the Unknown: Exploration of Search Engines’ Responses to Users with Depression and Anxiety

Researchers worldwide have explored the behavioral nuances that emerge from interactions of individuals afflicted by mental health disorders (MHD) with persuasive technologies, mainly social media. Yet, there is a gap in the analysis pertaining to a persuasive technology that is part of their everyday lives web search engines (SE)… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A. & Pera, M. S. (2023). " Into the Unknown: Exploration of Search Engines’ Responses to Users with Depression and Anxiety " ACM Transaction on the Web. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/into2023tweb.pdf

The Users Aren’t Alright: Dangerous Mental Illness Behaviors and Recommendations

In this paper, we argue that recommendation systems are in a unique position to propagate dangerous and cruel behaviors to people with mental illnesses. Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A. & Chancellor, S. (2022). " The Users Arent Alright: Dangerous Mental Illness Behaviors and Recommendations " Proceddings of the 5th Workshop FAccTRec Workshop: Responsible Recommendation with ACM RecSys 2022. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/users2022facctrec.pdf

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: Why Using the “Right” Readability Formula in Children’s Web Search Matters

Readability is a core component of information retrieval (IR) tools as the complexity of a resource directly affects its relevance: a resource is only of use if the user can comprehend it. Even so, the link between readability and IR is often overlooked. As a step towards advancing knowledge on the influence of readability on IR, we focus on Web search for children… Read more

Recommended citation: Allen, G., Milton, A., Wright, K. L., Fails, J. A., Kennington, C., & Pera, M. S. (2022). "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: Why Using the “Right” Readability Formula in Children’s Web Search Matters " The 44th European Conference on IR Research (ECIR). http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/readingECIR2022.pdf

Baby Shark to Barracuda: Analyzing Children’s Music Listening Behavior

Music is an important part of childhood development, with online music listening platforms being a significant channel by which children consume music. Children’s offline music listening behavior has been heavily researched, yet relatively few studies explore how their behavior manifests online… Read more

Recommended citation: Spear, L., Milton, A., Allen, G., Raj, A., Green, M., Ekstrand, M. D., & Pera, M. S. (2021). "Baby Shark to Barracuda: Analyzing Children’s Music Listening Behavior " Proceedings of the 15th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/babysharkRecSys2021.pdf

To Infinity and Beyond! Accessibility is the Future for Kids’ Search Engines

Research in the area of search engines for children remains in its infancy. Seminal works have studied how children use mainstream search engines, as well as how to design and evaluate custom search engines explicitly for children… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Allen, G., & Pera, M. S. (2021). "To Infinity and Beyond! Accessibility is the Future for Kids Search Engines " IR for Children 2000-2020: Where Are We Now? Workshop co-located with the 44th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/infinityIR4C2021.pdf

Pink for Princess, Blue for Superheroes: The Need to Examine Gender Sterotypes in Kid’s Products in Search and Recommendations

In this position paper, we argue for the need to investigate if and how gender stereotypes manifest in search and recommender systems… Read more

Recommended citation: Raj, A., Milton, A., & Ekstrand, M. D. (2021). "Pink for Princess, Blue for Superheroes: The Need to Examine Gender Sterotypes in Kid's Products in Search and Recommendations " Proceedings of the 5th KidRec Workshop co-located with ACM Interation, Design, and Children Conference. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/pinkKidRec2021.pdf

A Ranking Strategy to Promote Resources Supporting the Classroom Environment

Popular search engines (SE) favored by children are optimized neither to respond to their search behavior and abilities, nor retrieve resources that align with classroom standards. Further, attempts to adapt SE to support children’s inquiries have been one-dimensional, e.g., satisfy users’ reading skills or search expertise… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Anuya, O., Spear, L., Wright, K. L., & Pera, M. S. (2020). "A Ranking Strategy to Promote Resources Supporting the Classroom Environment " Proceedings of the IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT). 1(3). http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/rankingWIIAT2020.pdf

“Don’t judge a book by its cover”: Exploring book traits children favor

We present the preliminary exploration we conducted to identify traits that can influence children’s preferences in books… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Batista, L., Allen, G., Gao, S., Ng, Y. K. D., & Pera, M. S. (2020). "“Don’t judge a book by its cover”: Exploring book traits children favor " Proceedings of the 14th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems. 1(3). http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/judgeRecSys2020.pdf

What Snippets Feel: Depression, Search, and Snippets

Mental health disorders (MHD) is a rising, yet stigmatized, topic in the United States. Individuals suffering from MHD are slowing starting to overcome this stigma by discussing how technology affects them. Researchers have explored behavioral nuances that emerge from interactions of individuals affected by MHD with persuasive technologies, mainly social media… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A. & Pera, M. S. (2020). "What Snippets Feel: Depression, Search, and Snippets " The 1st Joint Conference of the Information Retrieval Communities in Europe (CIRCLE). http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/feelCircle2020.pdf

Evaluating Information Retrieval Systems for Kids

Evaluation of information retrieval systems (IRS) is a prominent topic among information retrieval researchers–mainly directed at a general population. Children require unique IRS and by extension different ways to evaluate these systems, but as a large population that use IRS have largely been ignored on the evaluation front… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A. & Pera, M. S. (2020). "Evaluating Information Retrieval Systems for Kids " The 4th KidRec Workshop co-located with ACM Interaction Design and Children (IDC) Conference. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/evaluatingKidRec2020.pdf

An empirical analysis of search engines’ response to web search queries associated with the classroom setting

The purpose of this paper is to examine strengths and limitations that search engines (SEs) exhibit when responding to web search queries associated with the grade school curriculum… Read more

Recommended citation: Anuyah, O., Milton, A., Green, M., & Pera, M. S. (2020). " An empirical analysis of search engines’ response to web search queries associated with the classroom setting " Aslib Journal of Information Management. 72(1). http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/empiricalAslib2020.pdf

StoryTime: eliciting preferences from children for book recommendations

We present StoryTime, a book recommender for children. Our web-based recommender is co-designed with children and uses images to elicit their preferences… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Green, M., Keener, A., Ames, J., Ekstrand, M. D., & Pera, M. S. (2019). "StoryTime: eliciting preferences from children for book recommendations " Proceedings of the 13th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems. 1(3). http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/storytimeRecSys2019.pdf

Here, There, and Everywhere: Building a Scaffolding for Children’s Learning Through Recommendations

Reading and literacy are on the decline among children. This is compounded by the fact that children have trouble with the discovery of resources that are appropriate, diverse, and appealing… Read more

Recommended citation: Milton, A., Murgia, E., Landoni, M., Huibers, T., & Pera, M. S. (2019). " Here, There, and Everywhere: Building a Scaffolding for Children’s Learning Through Recommendations " Proceddings of the 1st Workshop on the Impact of Recommender Systems with ACM RecSys 2019. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/herethereImpact2019.pdf

The Need for a Comprehensive Strategy to Evaluate Search Engine Performance in the Classroom

Given how ingrained Search Engines (SEs) are in educational environments, it is essential to evaluate their performance in response to inquiries that pertain to the classroom setting. In this position paper, we discuss the limitations of relying solely on traditional Information Retrieval metrics and usability studies… Read more

Recommended citation: Anuyah, O., Green, M., Milton, A., & Pera, M. S. (2019). "The Need for a Comprehensive Strategy to Evaluate Search Engine Performance in the Classroom " The 3rd KidRec Workshop co-located with ACM Interaction Design and Children (IDC) Conference. http://ashleemilton.github.io/files/comprehensiveKidRec2019.pdf