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AiRWeb: Using AR to Extend Web Browsing Beyond Handheld Screens

Mengfei Gao, Caroline Appert, Ludovic David, Emmanuel Pietriga

TL;DR

A phone+AR Web browsing approach, AiRWeb, that leverages the structural properties of Web pages to allow users to seamlessly select and offload arbitrary Web content into the space surrounding them, focusing on flexibility.

Abstract

Browsing the Web on mobile devices is often cumbersome due to their limited screen space. We investigate a phone+AR Web browsing approach, AiRWeb, that leverages the structural properties of Web pages to allow users to seamlessly select and offload arbitrary Web content into the space surrounding them. Focusing on flexibility, AiRWeb lets users decide what to offload, when to do so, and how offloaded content is arranged, enabling personalized organization tailored to the task at hand. We developed a fully functional prototype using standard Web technologies, that covers the complete interaction workflow, from the selection of elements to offload from the phone to their manipulation in the air. Results from a preliminary study conducted using this prototype suggest that AiRWeb is learnable and usable, while also revealing open design challenges around offload mode activation in particular.

AiRWeb: Using AR to Extend Web Browsing Beyond Handheld Screens

TL;DR

A phone+AR Web browsing approach, AiRWeb, that leverages the structural properties of Web pages to allow users to seamlessly select and offload arbitrary Web content into the space surrounding them, focusing on flexibility.

Abstract

Browsing the Web on mobile devices is often cumbersome due to their limited screen space. We investigate a phone+AR Web browsing approach, AiRWeb, that leverages the structural properties of Web pages to allow users to seamlessly select and offload arbitrary Web content into the space surrounding them. Focusing on flexibility, AiRWeb lets users decide what to offload, when to do so, and how offloaded content is arranged, enabling personalized organization tailored to the task at hand. We developed a fully functional prototype using standard Web technologies, that covers the complete interaction workflow, from the selection of elements to offload from the phone to their manipulation in the air. Results from a preliminary study conducted using this prototype suggest that AiRWeb is learnable and usable, while also revealing open design challenges around offload mode activation in particular.
Paper Structure (6 sections, 3 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 6 sections, 3 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Motivating Scenario
  3. AiRWeb
  4. Implementation
  5. Preliminary Evaluation
  6. Discussion

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Different types of element selections: (A) Tapping on an element selects it; (B) Performing a vertical drag makes a rubberband selection that can freely span elements regardless of the DOM hierarchy.; (A.1) Tapping again on an already-selected element expands the selection to its parent in the DOM hierarchy; and (A.2) Performing a long-press on an already-selected element pops up a button to expand the selection to all similar elements in the DOM hierarchy.
  • Figure 2: AiRWeb partitions space into three regions: $Region_{Phone}$ (orange), $Region_{FoV}$ (blue), and $Region_{World}$. Anchoring depends on the region where the element is released. Visual feedback guides users by revealing planar regions or highlighting the element’s relationship to physical surfaces.
  • Figure 3: Help video consultations by feature $\times$ participant. Each cell indicates whether a participant (column) consulted the help video for the feature (row): ✓ = no video consulted, $\blacktriangleright$ = video consulted.