Web Driving: An Image-Based Opportunistic Web Browser That Visualizes a Peripheral Information Space

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Abstract An image-based opportunistic Web browser called "WebDriving" is described that automatically and continuously visualizes the "peripheral information space". It extracts the images from the current Web page, its link-destination pages, and other related pages and uses them to dynamically construct a 3D space. This enables the user to concurrently browse not only the images on the current Web page but also the images in the peripheral information space. The user browses these images by "driving a car through the constructed 3D world". The user thus becomes aware of other relevant Web pages while browsing the current page, which is a form of "opportunistic browsing". An experiment in which elementary school pupils used the WebDriving browser demonstrated that they could use it to effectively obtain information because it enabled them to intuitively understand a Web space, the functions of a Web browser, and Web search.KeywordsImage-based opportunistic web browserPeripheral information spaceInvestigative learning