In the realm of extended reality (XR), traditional navigation methods designed for flat screens are being transformed to fit immersive environments. The VR WebOS introduces three core apps—Books, Bubbles, and Rooms—each offering unique ways to manage content, engage socially, and explore the digital world. This integrated approach merges the digital and physical, providing a deeply intuitive way to interact with media, apps, and virtual environments.
1. Books: The Content Organizer
The Books app combines the best of digital libraries and physical archives, transforming media browsing into a book-like experience. It merges the nostalgia of traditional libraries with the efficiency of a modern digital interface.
- Virtual Bookshelf with Tab Dividers: Users can organize media on a virtual bookshelf, with each "page" representing different files or documents. Tab dividers help users navigate through categories, making large collections easily accessible.
- Multi-Media Support: Books handles a wide range of media types, including images, audio, 3D models, and websites. It can manage extensive collections, supporting up to 20,000 items.
- Interactive Markers and Personalization: Customizable dividers and interactive markers offer a personalized, tactile media browsing experience.
User Experience: Books brings the tactile feel of a physical library to the digital realm, offering a unique, immersive way to manage media collections that appeals to users seeking a more intuitive organizational system.
2. Bubbles: The PWA App Organizer
Bubbles offers a new way to organize apps using a dynamic, bubble-based interface, moving beyond the standard grid layout. This nested, visually engaging system allows users to categorize and access Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) in an intuitive, spatial manner.
- Nested Bubbles for App Organization: Apps are grouped within primary bubbles, with sub-bubbles for specific categories like "Productivity" or "Entertainment," making organization natural and thematic.
- Drag-and-Drop Simplicity: Users can easily move apps between bubbles, customizing their collections as their needs evolve.
- Customizable Labels and Colors: Personalize each bubble with unique labels and colors to visually distinguish app groups.
- Expandable Bubbles: Selecting a bubble expands it to reveal all nested apps, providing a smooth, user-friendly navigation experience.
- Intuitive Navigation: Simple gestures or taps enable quick navigation between bubbles, creating an organized, spatially conceptual method of accessing apps.
User Experience: Bubbles offers a customizable, engaging approach to app management, appealing to users who prefer an organic, folder-like structure over rigid grid systems. It adapts to individual preferences, allowing organization by project, frequency, or category.
3. Rooms: XR Browser and Spatial Social Network Vision
Rooms acts as a customizable XR browser and social hub, blending virtual environments with a spatial browser experience. It allows users to personalize their digital space, interact socially, and explore a 3D cosmos where each room, city, and planet represents different topics, websites, or categories.
- Customizable Virtual Environments: Users can scan and replicate their physical rooms or design imaginative spaces, decorating them with interactive objects and 3D elements.
- Social Collaboration: Invite friends to explore and collaborate within shared virtual spaces, making Rooms a social hub for the XR world.
- Interactive Objects and Art: Place interactive objects that display content, such as virtual plants or musical instruments, enhancing engagement within the space.
- Extendable with Subscriptions: Add virtual artworks, sculptures, and other pieces to personalize the environment, showcasing creativity and unique style.
Spatial Web Vision: Inspired by the original Yahoo directory, Rooms reimagines the web as a structured spatial experience, where users navigate through levels (planets, cities, streets, rooms) like exploring a real-world city. It offers an intuitive, immersive method of discovering and interacting with content.
Since 2016, my work with the XR community has focused on advancing this concept using webXR and A-Frame technologies. The initial prototype, 3D Hub, features Earth and ten planets representing core