User Needs

Jörgensen summarizes research suggesting that users search for objects in images at a ‘Basic Level’, which is “neither the most specific nor the most abstract level but is rather an intermediate level.” (Jörgensen 1999, 305) It is not possible to anticipate all of the possible reasons why someone is looking for an image, since the visual medium is particularly interdisciplinary. As Besser points out, a single image can be “useful to historians wanting a snapshot of the times, to architects looking at buildings, to urban planners looking at traffic patterns or building shadows, to cultural historians looking at changes in fashion, to medical researchers looking at female smoking habits, to sociologists looking at class distinctions, or to students looking at the use of certain photographic processes or techniques.” (Besser 1990, 788)

Users with diverse backgrounds and disciplines expect to be able to search for images across multiple sources for a plethora of attributes. Among the findings of Choi & Rasmussen (2003) is the fact that “most image content that the participants sought fitted into general person and thing, and event and condition limited by a geographic location or time period.” (Choi & Rasmussen 2003, 504-505)