Towards an improved user access and satisfaction

The production of multimedia works and their increasing availability on the Internet poses the question about how to search for them, and successfully retrieve them in an efficient and effective way.

Information Retrieval (IR) has usually been considered a mainly library-related issue; in terms of information analysis and processing by librarians (conceptual analysis, content description, indexing, development and application of thesauri etc.); and, from the user’s viewpoint, in terms of searching for information and retrieving it through library catalogues, bibliographic databases etc. In brief, text retrieval has been the main way to retrieve information, intended as textual information or information, textually described. In the second part of the twentieth century, the diffusion of information in electronic form and, since the mid-1990s, the wealth and availability of non-print media such as digital objects, music, images, pictures and videos, have emphasized the user’s role in his/her independency from the library. This is the so-called disintermediation era, where the intermediary, the ‘middleman’ (Cobo, 2011) is cut out from the production and distribution of knowledge.

The increasing production (both digitally-born and digitized) on one hand, and the need for non-print content on the other hand, underline a growing interaction and integration between humans and technology. Studies of such a close relationship, and the convergence of different fields of science and technology shows an emerging eco-info-bio-nano-cogno era, with interesting implications in educational terms (Cobo and Moravec, 2011) in the field of digital literacy or media and information literacy education. They are encompassed by the so-called NBIC paradigm, where nano,1 bio, info and cognitive (NBIC) areas and technologies converge and sometimes merge. These four areas have been identified as key ones in the National Science Foundation Report (NCF, 2003). Creativity and the production of creative works will also benefit from the development of the NBIC as an integrated field (Bainbridge et al., 2003). In a futurist and trans-humanist’s view, by 2020 ‘Engineers, artists, architects, and designers will experience tremendously expanded creative abilities, both with a variety of new tools and through improved understanding of the wellsprings of human creativity’ (Orca, 2012). Transformative technologies will help to create new expressions of arts.2 New forms of creative works will emerge: they shall not be related or confined only to current art-forms. For instance, pictures, images and the production of content where images are fundamental (as in many applied sciences, like medicine, engineering etc.) are expected to increase significantly. New technological solutions are flourishing and spreading, like the application of nanotechnologies in the production and application of nanofibrous media. For instance, the interest in quantum dots application is ever increasing both in the research field and in the corporate one: quantum dots3 are particularly useful in the STEM sector, e.g., for drug discovery (Rosenthal et al., 2011), or in sectors where images of high quality and definition are required, and specific technological solutions are needed (for instance, aiming at better quality pictures, as developed by InVisage.4

The interesting trends in a closer integration of media, with a consequent increasing convergence (Jenkins, 2008) of media, technology and humans, remind us that factors – like users’ perspective and behaviour – have to be taken into account rather more than in the past, especially when designing tools and planning services that aim at assisting in retrieving multimedia information. Digital natives (Prensky, 2001a, 2001b) very often use technology in a ‘bricolage’ (tinkering) way (Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005), and show a clear preference for online information, available in digital form and accessible 24/7, rather than a printed version.5 This also affects the way they search for information, process and use it throughout their academic life. They prefer information that can be accessed very easily (Ucak, 2007). They multi-task; actively participate in social media; produce multimedia content; and often have a need for retrieving music and pictures. They need to find media, resources, and multimedia information that are relevant to them.

Visuality: visual information needs and visual skills are not exclusive features of young people today: they are relevant in many professions (e.g., surgeons). Furthermore, visual queries are proved to be more efficient and effective in a cross-lingual issue. Images, pictures, music etc. are usually described and indexed in a textual way – their content is forced into a textual form – and are retrieved using text (keywords, descriptors etc.) in traditional IR. The conversion of a text or single words into an effective image would facilitate the search for information in multilingualism or in cross-lingual context (Lin, Chang and Chen, 2006). Multimedia Information Retrieval (MIR) can be crucial to finding media other than in a textual form, so that the user’s multimedia information needs can be accurately addressed (Ren and Blackwell, 2009).

In terms of user perspective (and user satisfaction), improved user access to multimedia content is discussed in many meetings6 and is the aim of research and projects. There are many useful examples in the corporate field: for example, Shazam started as ‘a simple service designed to connect people in the UK with music they heard but didn’t know’ (http://www.shazam.com/music/web/about.html). It has also been the overall goal of PetaMedia (Peer-To-Peer Tagged Media), a network of excellence – comprising four national networks from the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK and Germany – funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme, and active from March 2008 to September 2011. It aimed at building the foundations of ‘a European virtual centre of excellence’, where multimedia content can be accessed using user-generated annotations and the structures of peer-to-peer and social networks. Among the research projects developed within PetaMedia, one is particularly in tune with the aim of Raieli’s work: Off The Beaten Track (OTBT) is based on that triple synergy: user-user relationships (i.e., a social network); user-media interactions (i.e., user-contributed annotations); and a multimedia collection (i.e., material for multimedia analysis). On this basis, an interesting prototype Near2Me, an outdoor tourist guide, was developed. It incorporated the following PetaMedia technologies:

Many research challenges were faced while developing the prototype at different levels – interface, technology integration, evaluation – to get useful information and significant feed-back from user-perspective testing. Near2Me functions as a tourist guide that helps the tourist to explore an area and find interesting places to visit, according to his/her (geotagged) location. An animated video also provides the user with an audio-visual overview of attractions, landmarks, cultural places etc. Many field trials, involving over 1,000 users, were carried out in order to test and validate the integration of the triple synergy and the user perspective. Locations, topics and experts were the most appreciated perspectives by the participants in the study. The trial then resulted in a balanced combination between the two goals – the former, technology-oriented, and the latter, user-oriented (PetaMedia, 2012: 12–15). Other projects are also exploring and developing image query and recognition, users’ interaction etc.7

The shift from the technological dimension to the social, interconnected and interactive dimension of media and communication shows how McLuhan’s ideas – the global village and "the medium is the message" – have been actualizing during the last few years. The still traditional separation between cold and hot media has been overtaken by the predominance of software over hardware, which is now shifting to an increasing range of tools and media. These are characterized by different levels of integration, flexibility and interactivity; features that make them more (or less) relevant and useful to a user. They also carry and transmit lifestyles and values. Furthermore, the content is key. Analysts define four models of content and related scenarios, with different levels of privacy, data protection and exchange: Premium content (with a low level of interactivity and a pay-per-view fruition); Interactive immersion (e.g., multimedia content); Social media (peer-to-peer, interactive and social construction and aggregation of...