Look Before You Leap: Trusted User Interfaces for the Immersive Web

Abstract: Part of what makes the web successful is that anyone can publish content and browsers maintain certain safety guarantees. For example, it's safe to travel between links and make other trust decisions on the web because users can always identify the location they are at. If we want virtual and augmented reality to be successful, we need that same safety. On the traditional, two-dimensional (2D) web, this user interface (UI) is provided by the browser bars and borders (also known as the chrome). However, the immersive, three-dimensional (3D) web has no concept of a browser chrome, preventing routine user inspection of URLs. In this paper, we discuss the unique challenges that fully immersive head-worn computing devices provide to this model, evaluate three different strategies for trusted immersive UI, and make specific recommendations to increase user safety and reduce the risks of spoofing.