The study aimed to explore the potential benefits of using virtual reality (VR) for computational notebooks, focusing on enhancing navigation and comparison capabilities. The researchers adapted the computational notebook interface for VR, introducing an additional hierarchical layer, a curved layout, and gesture-based interactions, including a branch and merge functionality.
The study involved a controlled user evaluation comparing computational notebooks on desktop and in VR, with and without the branch and merge capability. The tasks included navigation (identifying and rectifying issues) and comparison (determining optimal parameter values).
The results showed that VR significantly facilitated navigation compared to desktop, with participants completing navigation tasks faster in VR. The branch and merge functionality also significantly improved the comparison process, allowing users to more efficiently generate and review results across different parameter configurations.
However, text input in VR was found to be significantly more time-consuming than on desktop. After excluding text input time, VR+Linear was still faster than Desktop+Linear for the comparison task, though the difference between VR+Branch and Desktop+Branch was not statistically significant.
Participants also reported VR+Branch as the most engaging and effective condition overall, with 80% ranking it as their top preference. The study provides empirical evidence that VR can enhance computational notebook experiences, particularly for navigation and comparison tasks, while also highlighting the need to further improve text input in immersive environments.
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arxiv.org
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