Hyowon Lee's research interest is the user-interface and usability concerns of multimedia information retrieval systems. As a full-time member of the Centre for Digital Video Processing (CDVP), he has been developing strategies for interface design for online digital video browsing systems which make full use of automatic content analysis techniques developed by the Centre.

Dr. Lee has been designing and refining the interfaces for the web-based interfaces for the Físchlár systems, campus-wide web-based digital video retrieval systems to demonstrate the CDVP's video analysis and indexing research and to monitor usage patterns of the systems in the campus-wide experimental environment to feedback into the design process. Designing the user-interfaces for such video retrieval systems is complicated due to the need to provide interactivity with various media contained (visual, aural, text) that is time-based, and also due to the fact that there are no generally established usage patterns for online content-based video searching and browsing systems which uses fully-automatic content analyses. This has involved an overall browsing scheme for TV programmes and news video contents, strategies to develop various keyframe-based video content browsers, and design concerns for mobile access to video archive as being implemented within the architecture of Físchlár.

Dr. Lee has also been developing interfaces for video systems developed annually for participation in TRECVID, a US-funded annual video retrieval evaluation activity, since 2001. The interfaces designed for these systems are more focused on searching, thus complementing various browsing strategies developed for Físchlár systems.