VRowser: A virtual reality parallel web browser

Abstract

In this paper, we propose VRowser, which is a virtual reality (VR) web browser that utilizes various visualization and interaction methods to support webpage content comparisons, allocation, grouping, and retrieval that are essential of parallel web browsing. VRowsers main design objective is to embody a VR parallel web browsing environment that maintains familiar web browsing metaphors and leverages virtual reality interaction and visualization capabilities to support parallel web browsing tasks. Thus, our approach retains the following design factors: (1) Immersive VR. (2) Maintaining document-based web browsing metaphor within the VR environment. (3) Segregated interaction methods for 3D and web-tasks. We present our prototype specifications, followed by an evaluation. Our user study essentially gauged participants impressions about VRowser, as well as their webpage placement strategies within two different VR environments. The results indicate that users heavily relied on environmental landmarks, such as trees or furniture, to facilitate placement and retrieval of webpages. While the locomotion method developed in our prototype proven to be inefficient for quickly travelling from one location to another. Lastly, we present our conclusion and future development direction of our work.