This brief paper evaluates the efficacy of the Janus VR application to act as a web browser for information retrieval.

1. Janus VR – Heuristic Evaluation
Core Principles (Learnable, Understandable, Habitual, Memorable)
While the environment may seem confusing to many users at first glance,
Janus provides the user with simple controls to accomplish the basic tasks that
many would seek to achieve in immersive VR. Users can generate a new portal by
using the tab button, and they can travel through the portal by clicking on it.
Following first successful interaction with the application, the user can easily
remember the subtasks necessary to create a portal and navigate to a website.
Storing Credentials
This application would benefit from having the capacity to remember specific
user preferences and allow expert users to move onto more complex affordances of
the application by storing their data and keeping track of their proficiencies.
Providing the user with a username and password also allows them to store data
such as friend lists and chat logs as well as save their progress in the case where
they have developed objects or environments within the Janus VR MetaVerse.
Zoom & Filter
Users would benefit from the implementation of zoom and filtering
functionality to drill down and focus on specific areas of interest. This also allows
users to access information that may be too small to retrieve in the absence of the
ability to zoom. Zoom functionality also gives the user the option of rescaling the
websites that are currently visualized in 2D.
Navigation Functionality
Providing the user with an intuitive map of the environment in which they
are present in informs the user of their surroundings within the MetaVerse and
keeps them aware of other objects and environments that are close by. It could also
be beneficial to give users the option of viewing annotated short descriptions
hovering over the portals to inform them of what may be inside.
Realism
While Janus VR envisions a huge deviation from the conventional mental
model that most user have in mind when they reflect upon their experience with the
web, it proposes such immense growth in the areas of immersion and presence that
it can be favorable over the tiled display proposed by SteamVR. Avatars induce an
enhanced feeling of presence and immersion, yet there are also tradeoffs in that the
avatar does not take on a true, relatable human form factor. However, navigating
through the MetaVerse with the avatar as a digital transportation device provides
heightened levels of embodiment and awareness that cannot be accomplished with
the conventional approach towards web browsing.
State & Transition
In terms of heightening a user’s sense of presence within an immersive
environment, prompting the user to walkthrough portals to navigate between

2. MetaWorlds is efficient because the user feels the sense of physically being
transported to a new environment. However, Janus VR prompts users to first click
on the portal before traveling through it to the next MetaWorld, which may seem
unnatural to users and inhibit their sense of presence as a result.
Ease of Detection
Janus VR is dependent upon input from the user via keypad, mouse, or
controller. In immersive VR, the user cannot see where their hands are on the
keyboard, which can cause frustration when the user enters incorrect input.
However, Janus does an efficient job implementing a mirrored courser to allow the
user to interact with the 2D webpages. A possible fix would be to provide the user
with a mirrored keyboard, similarly to how the courser is provided.
Dynamic Feedback
The application should guide the user through the process of creating a new
portal with the tab key with some prompt to inform the user that they are to click
into the portal for entry rather than move through it using the arrow key. When
viewing web pages, Janus should indicate the cursor that is being used to interact
with the site specifically.
Safety Nets (Undo Function, Error Prevention, Help & Documentation)
Users should be instructed step-by-step how to interact with the immersive
environment. Users cannot move roam free in the MetaVerse without establishing
proficiency in task achievement and navigation while in tutorial mode. Once
proficiency is established, users are permitted to opt out of tutorial mode with a “do
not ask again” option.