Artworks are often created to solicit emotional responses, yet the emotional elements are largely missing from artworks’ description and access options. In an effort to advance the design of emotion-based image retrieval systems, our study developed several research proposals for incorporating emotion into the description and access features of a digital artwork collection. Most of the proposed solutions for developing emotion metadata for artworks were informed by the current practices in information organization, including crowdsoursing and expert classifications. Being grounded in various emotion theories, the proposals offer a variety of ways to integrate emotion descriptors and navigation features into the interface design of a museum website. While the proposed solutions for integrating emotion features into online collections are not exhaustive, they highlight some of the design choices for developing emotion metadata, coding schemas and navigation features, and offer innovative ways to engage virtual visitors with museum digital collection.ye
