A taxonomy of relationships between images and text

TLDR

The taxonomy applies to all subject areas and document types. The paper establishes a taxonomy of image‑text relationships to answer how illustrations relate to or function with associated text. The authors developed the taxonomy through a two‑stage process: first, analyzing literature across multiple domains, then applying it to 954 image‑text pairs from 45 web pages, and subsequently using qualitative content analysis on four government publication pairs to illustrate its use. The taxonomy identifies 49 image‑text relationships grouped into three categories based on conceptual closeness, with implications for information retrieval and document design.

Abstract

The paper establishes a taxonomy of image‐text relationships that reflects the ways that images and text interact. It is applicable to all subject areas and document types. The taxonomy was developed to answer the research question: how does an illustration relate to the text with which it is associated, or, what are the functions of illustration? Developed in a two‐stage process – first, analysis of relevant research in children's literature, dictionary development, education, journalism, and library and information design and, second, subsequent application of the first version of the taxonomy to 954 image‐text pairs in 45 Web pages (pages with educational content for children, online newspapers, and retail business pages) – the taxonomy identifies 49 relationships and groups them in three categories according to the closeness of the conceptual relationship between image and text. The paper uses qualitative content analysis to illustrate use of the taxonomy to analyze four image‐text pairs in government publications and discusses the implications of the research for information retrieval and document design.