Thoughts on the Future of WebXR and the Immersive Web

The web has a long history as a platform for design and creativity, and new standards aim to bring a wide range of emerging technologies (AR, VR, voice, IoT, etc) to the web. The WebXR Device API hopes to bring AR and VR capabilities to the web and allow these technologies to be added to new or existing web sites. How these technologies are exposed, and what capabilities they have, needs to be informed by designers and others with real use-cases in mind.

This position paper outlines some of the questions and ideas we have on future directions for the immersive web. In addition to expanding the initial WebXR Device API to support a more comprehensive set of capabilities, additional web APIs and frameworks will need to be created or expanded to fulfill the promised of Web-based AR and VR. As part of charting this path forward, the community will also need to decide what will and will not be possible on the web, and in what areas web-based AR and VR will excel.