AiRWeb: Using AR to Extend Web Browsing Beyond Handheld Screens

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.