Flamenco Image Browser: Using Metadata to Improve Image Search During Architectural Design

Flamenco Image Browser:Using Metadata to Improve Image Search During

Architectural Design

Ame ElliottGroup for User Interface Research (GUIR)

& Dept. of ArchitectureUniversity of California, Berkeley

Flamenco Image Browser 2

Problem Statement

Architects begin new projects by looking at images of prior projects How are elementary schools put together? What’s 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


Evaluation

Prototyping Tools .

Scope of the ProjectThe 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(ethnography, task analysis, interviews)

Hardware: Digital Desk

Software: Image Search UI

Quantitative

Qualitative


Evaluation

Prototyping Tools .

Scope of the ProjectThe 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(ethnography, task analysis, interviews)

Hardware: Digital Desk

Software: Image Search UI

Quantitative

Qualitative


Flamenco Image Browser

Interface to a collection of architectural images using metadata about the images to support search Metadata about the images providesQuery previews giving hints about possible

next actionsWays of broadening or refining search

terms


Why 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


Faceted Metadata

Planalto Palace Parti Communiste Francais PantheonOscar Neimeyer Oscar Neimeyer Jacques-Gabriel Soufflot20th Century 20th Century 17th & 18th C.Brasilia Paris ParisStone Curvilinear Stone

Image:Architect:Period:Location:Concept:


Planalto Palace Parti Communiste Francais PantheonOscar Neimeyer Oscar Neimeyer Jaques-Gabriel Soufflot20th Century 20th Century 17th & 18th C.Brasilia Paris ParisStone Curvilinear Stone

Image:Architect:Period:Location:Concept:

Faceted Metadata


Evaluation MethodologySolicit 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

734 images of France in the entire collection

100 images of France in the 1,000 results for stone


Results of Lo-Fi StudyThe 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 >> Gehry, Frank >> Berlin

Home >> 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 I’d just go get it myself.” Expanding search more important than refining

is different than


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

Goals for Study of Live Web Site


Informal Study of Live VersionComparison- a form-based UI to the same collection of imagesTask 1 – Free form search Participants told they are helping to test an image search engine Asked to talk about a project they’re working on and something they’d like to find Let them go at it and try to find images they’re 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


About the SystemWeb browser used to view Cold Fusion generated pages, queries made to a mySQL database36,000 images from the UC Berkeley Architecture Slide library5 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 MaterialsMasonry Finishing Materials

Stonework Brickwork Shingles


Results: Metadata is HelpfulVery positive feedback about FlamencoAll 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 nextPerceived as useful “These are places I

can go from here.”


Results: More Metadata PleaseParticipants 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


Results: ComplaintsThe 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 couldn’t find a treasure hunt image felt that Flamenco was slow Corroborates findings that perceived system speed

is about finding what you want (Spool ‘00)


Enthusiasm 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


Conclusions

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


Contributions

Increase understanding of what makes a good search interface Provide insights about how image search differs from text search


Acknowledgements

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

Thanks!



Related Work

“Berrypicking” model of information seeking (Bates)Information scent (Pirolli)Query previews (Plaisant & Shneiderman et al)QBIC & Blobworld (content analysis)


Architects’ Image Use Practices

Architects rely on personal image collections and libraries of print mediaImages emerge as relevant due to their juxtaposition with other images

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Flamenco Image Browser: Using Metadata to Improve Image Search During Architectural Design

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