Desktop VR and the Use of Supplementary Visual Information

A 3D desktop virtual reality could provide an overview of program windows; thus users can see supplementary information. The aim of this study was to compare the use of this extra information in desktop VR and in a classic 2D browser. To test this, a between-subject design was realized with 53 participants (VR group: 26; browser group: 27). The MaxWhere VR environment was used as desktop VR and the Google Chrome as browser. The participants had to complete a task, while they could see their performance visually. At the final questionnaire, they had to estimate their performance and indicate their basis for this estimation. There was a significant difference in the estimation accuracy between the two groups, for those who indicated the supplementary visual information as their main source of estimation. Those who completed the task in desktop VR could estimate their performance more accurately, so they remembered better the supplementary visual information.