Image querying by image professionals

Abstract

This paper reports the analysis of search logs from a commercial image provider over a one-month period and discusses the results in relation to previous findings. The study analyzes image searches, image queries composing the search, user search modification strategies, results returned, and user browsing of results. Unique term searches are less frequent than earlier research has shown, with more descriptive and thematic queries occurring. Boolean searching, while heavily employed, appears to be ineffective and leads to query modifications. While there was a large amount of query modification (55.8% of queries), the tactics overall do not appear to be carefully thought out but rather seem to be largely experimental. Given the willingness to modify queries but the inability to do so, much more support for query modification could be offered.