ExploreSelf

This is a monorepo codebase of an ACM CHI 2025 paper, "ExploreSelf: Fostering User-driven Exploration and Reflection on Personal Challenges with Adaptive Guidance by Large Language Models."

Visit project website at https://naver-ai.github.io/exploreself

Build

System Prerequisites

1. Install NodeJS LTS; recommend using NVM (https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm)

2. Install MongoDB (https://www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/administration/install-community/)

   • Mongodb service should be started manually after installation:
     • Mac:

       > brew services start mongodb-community
       

3. Install NX globally

   > npm install -g nx

4. Prepare for a OpenAI API key at https://platform.openai.com/.

   Copy and paste the API key somewhere. The key will be used in the next step.

Installation

1. In the repository, install node dependencies:

   > npm install

2. Run setup process (OpenAI API key will be asked to enter):

   > nx run setup

3. Run the server in dev mode:

   > npm run dev

4. Visit http://localhost:4200 on a web browser.

   • Enter 12345 as a passcode for the test account.

Creating a user account

1. Visit http://localhost:4200/admin
2. Enter the admin password you entered in the setup process.
3. Press 'Create user'

Cite ExploreSelf

ACM Citation

Inhwa Song, SoHyun Park, Sachin R. Pendse, Jessica Lee Schleider, Munmun De Choudhury, and Young-Ho Kim. 2025. ExploreSelf: Fostering User-driven Exploration and Reflection on Personal Challenges with Adaptive Guidance by Large Language Models. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’25) https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713883

BibTex

@inproceedings{song2025exploreself,
  author = {Inhwa Song and SoHyun Park and Sachin R. Pendse and Jessica Lee Schleider and Munmun De Choudhury and Young-Ho Kim},
  title = {ExploreSelf: Fostering User-driven Exploration and Reflection on Personal Challenges with Adaptive Guidance by Large Language Models},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713883},
  doi = {10.1145/3706598.3713883},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
  location = {Yokohama, Japan},
  series = {CHI '25}
}

Research Team (In the order of paper authors)

• Inhwa Song (Undergraduate student at KAIST) https://inhwasong.com/
• SoHyun Park (Researcher at NAVER Cloud)
• Sachin R. Pendse (Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University) https://www.sachinpendse.in/
• Jessica Lee Schleider (Associate Professor at Northwestern University) https://www.schleiderlab.org/labdirector.html
• Munmun De Choudhury (Associate Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology) http://www.munmund.net/
• Young-Ho Kim (Research Scientist at NAVER AI Lab) http://younghokim.net *Corresponding author

Code Contributors

• Inhwa Song (Undergraduate student at KAIST) https://inhwasong.com/
• Young-Ho Kim (Research Scientist at NAVER AI Lab) http://younghokim.net