Understanding the Everyday Use of Images on the Web
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This was presented at NordiCHI 2010 along with Jennifer Rode from Drexel. It was based on my diary study of nine participants regarding their use of images on the Internet. I'm planning to give a similar talk on the subject, aimed at a more commercial audience. Blog post here: http://boonyew.com/interaction/2010/10/28/why-we-use-images-on-the-internet/
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Understanding the Everyday Use of Images on the Web
- 1. Understanding the Everyday Use of Images on the Internet Boon Chew, Jennifer Rode, Abigail Sellen
- 2. 2 Project Aims • Research Question: Understand how people use images on the Internet in their everyday lives • Goal: Create a framework for understanding the motivations for everyday image use
- 3. 3 Literature Review • Classifying Search Behavior: – Directed v.s. exploratory search [Dumais et al, 2009; Marchionini, 1995] • Studies of Image Use: – By professional images [Armitage et al, 1997; Choi & Rasmussen, 2003; Markkula & Sormunen, 2000; Westman & Oittinen, 2006] – Studies of photowork and personal photos [Kirk et al, 2006; Graham et al, 2002; Rodden et al, 2003; Miller & Edwards, 2007] – Goodrum & Spink’s analyses of image search logs [2001]
- 4. 4 Method: Diary Study • 1st phase: Initial interviews • 2nd phase: – Participants logged activities involving images (excluding personal photos) – Periodic interviews to discuss tasks, goals, and motivations • 3rd phase: final interview
- 5. 5 Participants • 9 participants recruited via snowball sampling • Ages 24 to 59 • 5 females / 4 males • Occupations: housewife, student, retired lawyer, bookshop asst., graphic artist, recruiter, civil servant, accountant, blogger
- 6. Analysis Technique • Grounded Theory • Coding based on image use motivations • 13 sub-categories • Four high-level categories – Learning & Research – Image Access as Secondary Goals – Recreating/Connecting to Remote Experiences – Images as Objects of Communication 6
- 7. 7 Findings • Everyday Image use activities consist of: – 10% Image search tools i.e. Google Images – 17% Social networking sites, – 7% Maps – 16% News sites – 50% Domain-specific sites (e.g. company websites, e- commerce, interest sites such as photography)
- 8. Analysis Technique • Learning & Research • Image Access as Secondary Goals • Recreating/Connecting to Remote Experiences • Images as Objects of Communication 8
- 9. 9 Learning and Research – Images to Support ongoing interests or research – Images to satisfy curiosity – Images for visual discovery – Images as ideas > Findings
- 10. Images as Support Ongoing Interests or Research: 10 > Findings > Learning and Research > Examples “Gracia explained how she was looking for new work from [photographer A] on his Website. She found some new art there, then started searching for more of his work on Google Images, which she said was easier as it catches her attention.” (Fieldnotes for PS-CF-5)
- 11. Images to Satisfy Curiosity: 11 > Findings > Learning and Research > Examples
- 12. Images for Visual Discovery: 12 > Findings > Learning and Research > Examples
- 13. Images as Ideas: 13 > Findings > Learning and Research > Examples “There were a lot of beautiful images on this blog — she would look at the images before reading the content, as the images were very important to her. She visits the blog regularly because she wants to update herself about DIY, recycling and design.” (Fieldnotes for PS-CF-3)
- 14. Image Access as Secondary Goals – Images as Alternative Answers – Images as Aids for Geographical Orientation – Images as Indexes 14 > Findings >
- 15. Images as Alternative Answers: 15 > Findings > Secondary Goals > Examples
- 16. 16 Images as Aids for Geographical Orientation: > Findings > Secondary Goals > Examples
- 17. 17 Images as Indexes: the “right” DVD cover > Findings > Secondary Goals > Example
- 18. 18 Recreating or Connecting to Remote Experiences – Images for connecting to remote places – Images for re-living past experiences – Images for connecting to people and their lives – Images to connect to personalities > Findings
- 19. 19 Connecting to Remote Places > Findings > Remote Experiences > Examples
- 20. Images for re-living past experiences 20 > Findings > Remote Experiences > Examples
- 21. 21 Images for Connecting to People & their Lives: • Connecting to Family via Flickr: “...her sister was involved in a fashion show recently and so might have uploaded some photos… She uses Flickr as a way of checking up with her sister....” (Fieldnotes for PS-CF-4) > Findings > Remote Experiences > Examples
- 22. Images to connect to personalities 22 > Findings > Remote Experiences > Examples
- 23. 23 Discussion • Image search tool v/s browsing the familiar • Moved past keyword relevance & ranking accuracy to everyday use. • Allowed us to understand activities that existing tools do not support since they have a traditional search model of image use.
- 24. 24 Implications for Design • Search tools could explicitly support these types of image use, e.g. – For ‘Learning and research” supporting the context of exploratory search in particular is required. – To support ‘Images as a Secondary Goal” efficiency, accuracy and consistency are critical. • Images could just be a waypoint on way to goal. • Images as indexes could explicitly be used a navigation elements.
- 25. 25 Implications for Design • To support “Designing for Recreating or Connecting to Remote Experiences” – Increased fidelity to support to aid in recall recognition and simulate emotions – Means of evocatively capture and annotate experience with richness
- 26. Future Work • Studies to understand the relative frequency and values place on these types of image use • Creating tool to support these types of image use • Need to integrate our findings to broaden formal models of image search.
- 27. 27 Conclusions • Image search as typified by Google or Bing! is only one type of image search • Created a taxonomy of image use to explain image use • Context is critical to future design 27
- 28. 28 Discussion • Image search tool v/s browsing the familiar • Moved past keyword relevance & ranking accuracy to everyday use. • Allowed us to understand activities that existing tools do not support since they have a traditional search model of image use.
- 29. 29 Implications for Design • Search tools could explicitly support these types of image use – E.g. For images as a secondary efficiency, accuracy and consistency are critical. • Images could just be a waypoint on way to goal. • Images as indexes could explicitly be used a navigation elements.
- 30. 30 Questions? Boon Yew Chew b.chew@ucl.ac.uk Jennifer Rode jar394@drexel.edu Abigail Sellen asellen@microsoft.com 30
- 31. Extra Slides 31
- 32. 32 Images as Objects of Communication – Images to do the work of communication – Images for social interaction > Findings
- 33. Images to Do the Work of Communication 33 > Findings > Remote Experiences > Examples
- 34. Images for Social Interaction • Fieldnotes for Tom: The object of the game, played twice weekly, is to identify an obscure person based only on a photo. The person with the correct guess then uploads the next picture. While Tom was on the site, he clicked on other thumbnails of obscure people that looked interesting. There was one of Mae Busch, which looked interesting because you could barely recognize the person. In fact, he enlarged the photo so he could identify the person better. 34 > Findings > Remote Experiences > Examples
Editor's Notes
- The purpose of this study was to understand the use of images on the Internet in the context of everyday lives. The goal of the project was to develop a framework for classifying the various motivations for everyday image use, from which to inform the design process. During the presentation, the term, "image use", is used to define a broad range of ways in which images are accessed on the Internet, and is not limited specifically to image search alone.
- This paper builds upon Dumais and Marchionini’s models of directed and exploratory search, and extends studies on professional image search, personal photographs, and image search logs on the Internet. Its main contribution is along the dimensions of understanding user goals and motivations for image use.
- Our method was a diary study that was carried out over a period of two months. The diary study consisted of three phases: The first phase involved an initial interview to gain demographic information about the participants and their households. This was followed by the second phase, where participants recorded all image-related activities (with the exception of personal photographs). During this phase, participants were interviewed periodically every 2 to 4 days, depending on the total number and duration of their activities. These periodic interviews focused on understanding the goals, behaviors and motivations behind each image-related task. The third phase involved a debriefing interview during which participants were given a voucher incentive for their help in the study.
- We recruited 9 participants using snowball sampling, who were aged between 24 to 59 years old. Of those 9 participants, there were 5 females and 4 males. Their professions were: housewife, student, retired lawyer, bookshop asst., graphic artist, recruiter,civil servant, accountant,blogger
- The data from the diary study was analyzed using grounded theory to understand the underlying motivations behind the participants' activities. Using open coding, thirteen 'themes' of motivation were discovered. From these themes, emerged four high-level categories, which are: 1. Learning & Research,2. Image Access as Secondary Goals, 3.Recreating or Connecting to Remote Experiences, and 4. Images as Objects of Communication. It is important to note that some activities fall under more than one category, thus the themes and categories are not mutually exclusive.
- Our principal finding was that the participants had developed certain habits in their use of images on the Internet, especially on sites they frequently used. Out of all the image search activities, the use of a dedicated image search tool, i.e. Google Images, accounted for only 10% of the overall total. The remaining 90% involved social networking sites, sites with maps, news sites, and domain specific sites. Examples of domain specific sites include company websites, e-commerce sites, and sites specialized around a certain topic or domain, such as photography. We found that domain specific sites represented the largest portion of all sites visited involving image use.
- In the next few slides, I will talk through typical examples of image use activities from the three of these categories as shown bold.
- The category called, "Learning and Research", describes the use of images to gain new knowledge around personal interests, to satisfy curiosity, to discover insights using visuals, and to gain inspiration and new ideas. There are four themes under this category, which I will explain using examples from our study.
- The first theme we call “Images as Supporting Ongoing Interests or Research” under the Learning and Research category, involves regular, repeated use of images around a certain topic. This was the most common type of activity, and it involved a wide range of topics, such as parenting, modeling, sports, family history, politics and property hunting. In this example, the participant had a strong interest in the field of graphic design and illustration, and regularly kept abreast of certain artists and influential people in the field. In this sense, images can be used to understand the progression of certain themes or domains.
- In the second theme, “Images to Satisfy Curiosity”, we observed how participants sometimes searched for specific images to satisfy their curiosity. In this example, a participant was looking for photos of Christine Bleakley, after hearing claims that she looked older than her reported age. The participant was curious to know if the claims were indeed true, and looked specifically for a photo he had in mind.
- The third theme in the “Learning and Research” category shows the use of images for visual discovery. Sometimes, learning is derived from analyzing the images themselves; and in this example, one participant was searching for meat mincers on Amazon. She then realized that there were two types of meat mincers, because the product photos showed two visually distinguishable types of mincers – a clamp mincer vs. a table-top mincer.
- The final theme in the “Learning and Research” category shows the use of images for inspiration and ideas. This activity typically involved browsing large sets of images, usually centered around a specific topic or domain. In this example, the images from this specific website were used to gain inspiration and ideas about DIY and home improvement. In summary, the study showed how participants used images to support learning and research in many different ways.
- "Image Access as Secondary Goals" is a category of themes that describe the use of images to facilitate other goals. In other words, the images are used as a means and not an end, and are no longer needed once the goal has been met. There are three themes under this category, and I will explain what they are in the next few slides.
- In this example, one participant was looking for the recipe of an authentic Mexican dish, known as "arroz a la mexicana". However, she realized that there were many versions of this dish, so she employed Google Images to search for photos of the dish that looked authentic, thereby locating the recipe that she needed. This example shows how images can provide alternative viewpoints for content.
- Images are extremely useful as navigational aids, and this example shows how one participant made use of the images on this page for spatial orientation and navigation. The images here are secondary to the goal of navigation, and are discarded once the goal of arriving at a destination is completed.
- Images can also provide a speed advantage when used as indexes in a list, such as a search results page. In this example, one participant who was a movie fan looked for specific DVD covers, in order to determine the specific product he had in mind. Notice that the search query for the movie, "The Italian Job", returns multiple results for the same movie, and that scanning for specific DVD or box covers can be a more effective means of searching compared to text.
- In the next set of examples, I will talk about this category that we called "Recreating or Connecting to Remote Experiences". In our study, we found that participants used images to make connections to past memories, places, personalities, and their relationships. This category consists of four motivational themes, which I will describe in the next few slides.
- In this example, the motivation for image use was to allow participants to connect to remote places. Colin was one participant who had never been to Wembley Stadium, and he was looking through his friend's photos of the stadium to get a better impression of what the stadium was really like. The various perspectives of the space, specifically from a third party, and the use of multiple photos - were all factors that helped Colin visualize the experience of being at the stadium.
- This example is similar to the previous one, except that this participant was using images to recall, or "re-live", the experience of being in a town in New Zealand, where she used to live. The parcipant clicked on every thumbnail to view a more detailed photo in order to better recognize the elements within the photo, such as the grass and the buildings. Highly detailed photos, especially ones with narrative qualities, are useful in helping users to reconnect with past experiences.
- In our study, we observed a fair number of image use activities involving social networking sites such as Facebook and Flickr. In some of these activities, images served as a way to connect with a person and his or her life. Some of these activities were habitual, where participants would routinely look for images as a way of keeping up to date with a friend or a family member. In that sense, the addition of new photos helps provide more context about a person's ongoing life.
- The fourth theme involves the use of images to connect to personalities, such as celebrities or politicians. Once again, images that are used in this way are valued for their narrative qualities, which help users imagine how these famous people and their lives are really like. In this example, this participant was examining photos surrounding the death of Michael Jackson, which occurred during the middle of our study. The photos were a means for the participant to reflect about the personality - his life, the circumstances of his death, and who he really was as a person. In summary, images can play a powerful role in helping participants connect to people and places through imagination, recollection, and visual story-telling. ---- And next, Jennifer will discuss the next few slides. I will now pass the presentation over to Jennifer Rode, who will be talking about the Discussion, Implications for Design, Future Work and Conclusions.
- This study has shown that the term “image search” may hide the rich and interesting complex reasons why users engage with images on the Web, as well as, how they go about these activities. Here we have moved past relevance and ranking and given detailed examples of the unique behaviors involving images as part of everyday use. Our results show image search tools represent only about 10% of image use, and while it is difficult to make too much of this on the basis of a small sample, we can can observe differences between activities centered image search tools and other broader types of image use. Image search tools drive people to unfamiliar sites, whereas the majority of the image-based activities that we logged tended to involve routine and familiar activities and sites. Second, image use centered around domain-specific sites– e.g. themed e-commerce sites, property sites, or hobby sites-- these domain-specific sites comprising 50% of image use. The remaining balance of image use centered around social-networking and map sites. Understanding examples of where images were accessed in the context of other activities, allowed us to understanding needs that were unmet by existing image tools.
- Moving forward we need to better support these types of activities. For instance, to support our category “Learning and Research” we are not concerned with exclusively directed search, but also exploratory search around a domain using known sites in a deeply contextual way. We need to better understand and support these types of contextual activities centered on serendipitous discovery. To support our category “Images as a Secondary Goal” efficiency, accuracy and consistency are critical to meeting the end goal. If images are only a means to an end, rather than the goal them self different UIs are required, which supports there transitory relevance to the task. Further, images as indexes have powerful possibilities as navigation elements, with a picture being worth a thousand words.
- Our participants often remarked on how they valued the detail in photos theyviewed when recreate or connect to remote experiences. Thus, higher fidelity photos can be used to help users in the task of analyzing visual detail and contextual relevance; aiding recall, recognition and helps in stimulating emotions. These types of experiences--- connecting with others– require a richness of experience beyond simple tagging that takes into account the nuance of the social encounter. Consider for instance your grandmother telling you your families stories while flipping through a family album on a holiday, and the depth of meaning in her voice and how she tells the story– there is considerable more richness than a static facebook tag that appears the same to all. The narrative changes in response to those present as perhaps dishes are washed perhaps family joins. Oral narratives around photos are far richer than current tools permit. While we look to digital photographs to connect with people and places, connect with our past or even understand celebrity, and computer tools can go a long way to emulate the richness of the face to face by supporting context and in particular considering emotion.
- We need additional studies to understand the relative frequency and values place on these types of image use, in order to creating tool to support image use. Additionally, our framework for image use needs to be integrated with formal models of image search which currently lay out many of these activities only as “exploratory search”.
- In short image use is a highly contextual activity. Participants did not always have clear reasons for searching images, which suggests designers need to understand the variety of users’ motivations, goals, and context. To address this we have presented a framework of the various types of activities, along with design recommendations which show the behavioral and motivational dimensions involved in image search activities. We have found that images are often intertwined with the ongoing process of learning about the world, that they provide a compelling source of entertainment and inspiration, that they help create connections to other people and remote places, that they help us reminisce about our personal past, and that they provide a way of navigating both the Web and the physical world. Understanding these patterns are critical to design.
- This study has shown that the term “image search” may hide the rich and interesting complexity of reasons why users engage with images on the Web, and how they go about these activities. Our results show image search tools 10% While it is difficult to make too much of this on the basis of a small sample, we can speculate. These tools drive people to the familiar, whereas most 61% of the image-based activities we logged tended to involve routine and familiar activities . Domain-specific were key parts of usage patterns--the use of retail sites, property sites, social networking and map sites are all examples of where images most effectively accessed in the context of other kinds of activities.
- Fieldnotes for Florence: Florence’s flatmate found out that Florence didn’t know who Van Gogh was, and said that Van Gogh bore a striking resemblance to someone they both knew and asked her to do a search for the artist. Florence did a quick scan at the Google Image search results and she pointed to a Van Gogh self-portrait and asked her flatmate, "is it that one?" and the flatmate said yes and they both laughed at it because it did remind her of someone that they both knew.