The paper presents a panoramic view of the work carried out in the last few years in the area of interactive content-based image retrieval. We define a unifying framework based on query space in which exisiting methods are described. The framework allows to evaluate methods in their proper context. An important part of the framework is a classification of different query types which helps in bridging the gap between desired functionality and efficient support in an actual system. Having put methods in a common framework gives way to indentify promising research directions that have not yet been sufficiently explored.