Title: Flamenco Image Browser: Using Metadata to Improve Image Search During Architectural Design
1Flamenco Image BrowserUsing Metadata to Improve
Image Search During Architectural Design
- Ame Elliott
- Group for User Interface Research (GUIR) Dept.
of Architecture - University of California, Berkeley
2Problem Statement
- Architects begin new projects by looking at
images of prior projects - How are elementary schools put together?
- Whats new in patio materials?
- Current image search interfaces are not helpful
for image browsing in the early phase of design - Rely on well-formulated textual queries
- Ignore context of architecture
3Scope of the Project
- The Flamenco Image Browser is one customization
of a toolkit for domain-specific search (the
Flamenco projects) - The Flamenco Image Browser is one component of
my dissertation
Understanding Architects Work Practices (ethnogra
phy, task analysis, interviews)
Prototyping Tools .
Hardware Digital Desk
Software Image Search UI
Evaluation
Quantitative
Qualitative
4Scope of the Project
- The Flamenco Image Browser is one customization
of a toolkit for domain-specific search (the
Flamenco projects) - The Flamenco Image Browser is one component of
my dissertation
Understanding Architects Work Practices (ethnogra
phy, task analysis, interviews)
Prototyping Tools .
Hardware Digital Desk
Software Image Search UI
Evaluation
Quantitative
Qualitative
5Flamenco Image Browser
- Interface to a collection of architectural
images using metadata about the images to support
search - Metadata about the images provides
- Query previews giving hints about possible next
actions - Ways of broadening or refining search terms
6Why Use Metadata?
- Open questions about its utility
- How to use metadata not well understood
- Not an obvious thing to do for images
- Contrasts with automated content analysis
- Defies conventional wisdom
- If a picture is worth 1,000 words, let the
pictures speak for themselves - Professional architects have different needs than
curators - The thumbnail is the whole document, not like
text search using a title to stand in for a long
article
7Faceted Metadata
Planalto Palace Parti Communiste
Francais Pantheon Oscar Neimeyer
Oscar Neimeyer Jacques-Gabriel
Soufflot 20th Century 20th Century
17th 18th C. Brasilia Paris
Paris Stone Curvilinear Stone
Image Architect Period Location Concept
8Faceted Metadata
Planalto Palace Parti Communiste
Francais Pantheon Oscar Neimeyer
Oscar Neimeyer Jaques-Gabriel
Soufflot 20th Century 20th Century
17th 18th C. Brasilia Paris
Paris Stone Curvilinear Stone
Image Architect Period Location Concept
9Evaluation Methodology
- Solicit feedback from architects to determine if
faceted metadata is helpful and how to present it - Not evaluating if the current metadata in the
system is the right metadata - Lo-Fi evaluation of paper prototype
- 1 hour one-on-one with 3 professional architects
- Walk-through interactions on a paper computer,
users think-aloud (audio recorded), questions
about the experience - Informal study of live version
- 1 hour one-on-one with 9 architects /grad
students, 2 tasks (audio recorded) and a survey
10(No Transcript)
11100 images of France in the 1,000 results for
stone
734 images of France in the entire collection
12Results of Lo-Fi Study
- The difference between searching within results
and changing to a new search confused users - The breadcrumb did not help users orient
themselves when browsing results - Home gtgt Gehry, Frank gtgt Berlin
- Home gtgt Berlin
- Users were surprised at the outcome and could not
anticipate which they were getting (refine or
expand). - Image search is exploratory, not reductive
- Specific textual queries not important
- If I knew what I wanted to type in the box Id
just go get it myself. - Expanding search more important than refining
is different than
13Goals for Study of Live Web Site
- Make iterative changes to the alternatives to
identify useful aspects of the UI not
statistical analysis - Learn to what extent the metadata is useful for
searching - How much text is too much?
- What kinds of queries will the users do?
- Explore how to clarify searching within results
vs. starting a new search
14Informal Study of Live Version
- Comparison- a form-based UI to the same
collection of images - Task 1 Free form search
- Participants told they are helping to test an
image search engine - Asked to talk about a project theyre working on
and something theyd like to find - Let them go at it and try to find images theyre
interested in they can ask any questions they
want but no formal instructions given - Task 2 Treasure hunt
- Participants given paper copies of 3 images (but
no metadata) and told to find them (range from
easy to hard) - Exit survey
-
15(No Transcript)
16(No Transcript)
17About the System
- Web browser used to view Cold Fusion generated
pages, queries made to a mySQL database - 36,000 images from the UC Berkeley Architecture
Slide library - 5 facets of metadata about each image
- Image title, architect, period, location, and
concept - Shallow hierarchy for results in architect,
period, and location - Concept facet is from the Getty Art and
Architecture thesaurus - a 40,000 term
hierarchical thesaurus of descriptors of the
built environment this hierarchy not tested in
the live version
Building Materials
Masonry Finishing
Materials
Stonework Brickwork
Shingles
18Results Metadata is Helpful
- Very positive feedback about Flamenco
- All 9 participants named the metadata in the
search results area as their favorite aspect of
Flamenco - Metadata was successful at giving hints about
where to go next - Perceived as useful These are places I can go
from here.
19Results More Metadata Please
- Participants asked for more metadata
- Although there were complaints about the contents
of the metadata, users still wanted more - Longer lists of options (more hints)
- Users wanted more control to make very specific
searches - Half the participants requested the ability to
control order of results with metadata - Juxtapose visible images 2 different ways
- Overview (one image from each project) vs. like
together ( all images of a project next to each
other) - Different than ranking for text retrieval
(precision, recall), but ordering does matter
20Results Complaints
- The UI was not successful at clarifying searching
within results vs. starting a new search - Only 2 of the 9 participants understood the
distinction without discussion but they want to
do both - The 1/3 of the participants who couldnt find a
treasure hunt image felt that Flamenco was slow - Corroborates findings that perceived system speed
is about finding what you want (Spool 00)
21Enthusiasm for Metadata
- Contradicted my suspicions that a sledgehammer
and pick- through-the-rubble approach would be
preferable - No-one thought there was too much text
- Adding more text preferable to adding another row
of images
22Conclusions
- Metadata is useful for exploratory tasks
- Good at giving hints about where to go next
- Architects want to use metadata to get more
control - Of results display
- Build complex queries
- Sometimes the right word is worth more than many
pictures
23Contributions
- Increase understanding of what makes a good
search interface - Provide insights about how image search differs
from text search
24Acknowledgements
- Thanks to
- Marti Hearst my advisor
- Andy Edmonds for excellent coding
- Andy Chou for help with the database
- the Berkeley Museum Informatics Project for
access to the image collection - the Flamenco project team for search ideas
- and the members of GUIR for helpful feedback
25Thanks!
26(No Transcript)
27(No Transcript)
28(No Transcript)
29Related Work
- Berrypicking model of information seeking
(Bates) - Information scent (Pirolli)
- Query previews (Plaisant Shneiderman et al)
- QBIC Blobworld (content analysis)
30Architects Image Use Practices
- Architects rely on personal image collections
and libraries of print media - Images emerge as relevant due to their
juxtaposition with other images
31(No Transcript)