Break the Window: Exploring Spatial Decomposition of Webpages in XR

2026-03-02

AI Summary

This work proposes a spatialized web browsing approach to address the limitations of traditional XR browsers, which inherit the desktop single-window paradigm and fail to support immersive spatial interaction. The method decomposes web content into independent UI components that users can freely place in mid-air or on physical surfaces, enabling multimodal interaction through direct touch and ray-based selection. By breaking away from the single-window model, this approach achieves the first spatial decomposition of web content in mixed reality, facilitating distributed attention allocation and spatial sense-making. A qualitative study with 15 participants demonstrates its potential to enhance immersion and flexibility, while also revealing key challenges including coordination overhead, interaction precision, and the absence of a unified spatial UI standard.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Web
• Computer Vision: Multi-modal Vision
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Geometric, Spatial, and Temporal Reasoning

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data visualization
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web applications in cross-disciplinary domains and verticals such as mixed reality, smart cities, and digital health

Abstract

Most XR web browsers still present webpages as a single floating window, carrying over desktop design assumptions into immersive space. We explore an alternative by breaking the browser window and distributing a webpage into spatial UI chunks within a mixed-reality workspace. We present Break-the-Window (BTW), an exploratory prototype that spatially decomposes live, fully functional webpages into movable panels supporting mid-air and surface-attached placement, as well as direct touch and ray-based interaction. Through a formative study with XR practitioners and an exploratory qualitative study with 15 participants, we observed how spatial decomposition supports distributed attention and spatial meaning-making, while also surfacing challenges around coordination effort, interaction precision, and the lack of shared spatial UI conventions. This work invites discussion on how web interfaces might be reimagined for spatial computing beyond the single-window paradigm.

Problem

• spatial decomposition
• XR web browsing
• spatial UI
• window paradigm
• immersive web

Innovation

• spatial decomposition
• XR web browsing
• spatial UI
• mixed-reality workspace
• windowless interface