An efficient model-based methodology for developing device-independent mobile applications

Current methodologies for developing mobile applications are mostly based on the application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by the native platform. Hence, most solutions are characterized by a low portability and/or reusability. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology based on a declarative and device-independent approach for developing event-driven mobile applications. The methodology relies on: (i) an abstract mobile device based on the user interface markup language; (ii) a content adaptation mechanism based on user preferences; (iii) a context adaptation mechanism based on a standardized context of delivery; (iv) a uniform set of client-side APIs based on an interface object model; (v) an efficient transformational model.More specifically, in the design phase, the application is modeled as platform-independent on the abstract mobile device. In the execution phase, the application is automatically tailored to the specific platform on the basis of the content and context adaptation mechanisms. We describe the analysis, design and implementation of a framework, called MODIF, which supports the proposed methodology, and show its application to the development of both business and consumer real-world applications on Apple iPhone? and Google Android? mobile devices. Finally, we discuss how the experience of using MODIF highlights the quality of the methodology in terms of automation of the lifecycle, expressiveness and readability of the representation, efficiency of the compilation/interpretation, fast learning curve and predictability.     

A standard for developing secure mobile applications

The abundance of mobile software applications (apps) has created a security challenge. These apps are widely available across all platforms for little to no cost and are often created by small companies and less-experienced programmers. The lack of development standards and best practices exposes the mobile device to potential attacks. This article explores not only the practices that should be adopted by developers of all apps, but also those practices the enterprise user should demand of any app that resides on a mobile device that is employed for both business and private uses.     

A pluggable middleware architecture for developing context-aware mobile applications

The proliferation of powerful smartphone devices provides a great opportunity for context-aware mobile applications becoming mainstream. However, we argue that conventional software development techniques suffer because of the added complexity required for collecting and managing context information. This paper presents a component-based middleware architecture which facilitates the development and deployment of context-aware applications via reusable components. The main contribution of this approach is the combination of a development methodology with the middleware architecture, which together bring significant value to developers of context-aware applications. Further contributions include the following: The methodology utilizes separation of concerns, thus decreasing the developmental cost and improving the productivity. The design and implementation of context-aware applications are also eased via the use of reusable components, called context plug-ins. Finally, the middleware architecture facilitates the deployment and management of the context plug-ins in a resource-aware manner. The proposed methodology and middleware architecture are evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively.     

Mytilene E-guide: a multiplatform mobile application tourist guide exemplar

This paper introduces an approach of enhancing the tourism experience by incorporating a tool that adopts a “web-to-mobile” model into tourism websites that allows for the adaptation of personalized tourism web content to be transferred to a mobile application hosted at users’ mobile device. These applications upon installation to mobile devices allow for browsing of adapted multimedia content with no requirement for constant network connection. Furthermore so we convey the development experiences of a multiplatform mobile tourist guide aimed at producing a personalized mobile guide application used in both an online and offline modes offering services to tourists such as a personal profiling-based recommendation system, a commenting system and location-based services. This paper focuses on the design, implementation and usability case study of a Multi-Platform Tourist Guide system for the Municipal Council of Mytilene, Greece.     

A methodology for engineering collaborative and ad-hoc mobile applications using SyD middleware

Today’s web applications are more collaborative and utilize standard and ubiquitous Internet protocols. We have earlier developed System on Mobile Devices (SyD) middleware to rapidly develop and deploy collaborative applications over heterogeneous and possibly mobile devices hosting web objects. In this paper, we present the software engineering methodology for developing SyD-enabled web applications and illustrate it through a case study on two representative applications: (i) a calendar of meeting application, which is a collaborative application and (ii) a travel application which is an ad-hoc collaborative application. SyD-enabled web objects allow us to create a collaborative application rapidly with limited coding effort. In this case study, the modular software architecture allowed us to hide the inherent heterogeneity among devices, data stores, and networks by presenting a uniform and persistent object view of mobile objects interacting through XML/SOAP requests and responses. The performance results we obtained show that the application scales well as we increase the group size and adapts well within the constraints of mobile devices.     

Imhotep: an approach to user and device conscious mobile applications

As the dependence on mobile devices increases, the need for supporting a wider range of users and devices becomes crucial. Elders and people with disabilities adopt new technologies reluctantly, a tendency caused by the lack of adaptation of these technologies to their needs. To address this challenge, this paper describes a framework, Imhotep, whose aim is to aid developers in the accessible application creation process, making the creation of user-centered applications easier and faster. Our framework allows to easily adapt the applications to the constraints imposed by the user capabilities (sensorial, cognitive, and physical capabilities) and device capabilities by providing a repository that will manage the compilation and deployment of applications that include a set of preprocessor directives in the source code. These directives are enhanced with concepts that are automatically adjusted to the current trends of mobile devices by using a Fuzzy Knowledge-Eliciting Reasoner. Our final goal is to increase the number of applications targeted to elders and people with disabilities providing tools that facilitate their development. The paper also describes the evaluation of both the accuracy of the fuzzy terms generated for mobile devices and the usability of the proposed platform.     

A unified methodology for the evaluation of accessibility and usability of mobile applications

This article reports a unified methodology developed to evaluate the accessibility and usability of mobile computing applications, which is intended to guarantee universal access as far as possible. As a basis for the methodology, this paper presents an analysis of the accessibility guidelines, conducted to take into account the specificity of mobile systems, as well as a set of usability heuristics, specifically devised for mobile computing. Finally, it presents the results of the application of the proposed methodology to applications that have been semi-automatically developed by the MAIS Designer, a new design tool that provides applications suited to different mobile devices.     

Experiences in developing mobile applications using the Apricot Agent Platform

The trend of increasing mobile services has set a new challenge for service providers: how to develop more advanced and user-friendly, context-aware and personalized mobile services for the users. Apricot Agent Platform is an agent-based software platform designed for developing context-aware and personalized mobile services. Apricot Agent Platform supports the development of user-friendly mobile services by providing tools for combining various mobile and Internet-based services. Apricot agent architecture consists of an agent platform, agents and agent containers. For the developers of mobile services, it provides built-in functionality and communication mechanism. Furthermore, this paper describes four demonstrators that are built up on the Apricot Agent Platform to evaluate the usability and efficiency of the platform in the processes of building mobile services. The outcome of the evaluation indicates relatively promising results and the further target for development is revealed.     

A methodological approach for designing and developing web-based inventories of mobile Assistive Technology applications

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Mobile technologies provide radical opportunities in the domain of Assistive Technologies (AT) for persons with disabilities and the elderly by facilitating them...     

Studying the effect of perceived hedonic mobile device quality on user experience evaluations of mobile applications

When people interact with digital artefacts they perceive their pragmatic and hedonic qualities. In the case of interacting with mobile devices and applications, users seek utility as they try to satisfy certain needs, but at the same time they have certain feelings and emotions when, for example, they feel attached to their personal phone and/or trust its brand. Due to this strong relation between users and mobile devices a significant problem occurs when researchers want to evaluate the user experience of a mobile application in laboratory settings: the selection of an appropriate mobile device. Towards this end, this paper aims to unveil the effect of perceived hedonic quality of a mobile device on the user experience evaluation results of an application. Our results show that the perceived hedonic quality of a mobile device significantly affected the perceived pragmatic quality of the application, but not the hedonic one.     

A design methodology for data-parallel applications

A methodology for the design and development of data-parallel applications and components is presented. Data-parallelism is a well understood form of parallel computation, yet developing simple applications can involve substantial efforts to express the problem in low level notations. We describe a process of software development for data-parallel applications starting from high level specifications, generating repeated refinements of designs to match different architectural models and performance constraints, enabling a development activity with cost benefit analysis. Primary issues are algorithm choice, correctness, and efficiency, followed by data decomposition, load balancing, and message passing coordination. Development of a data-parallel multitarget tracking application is used as a case study, showing the progression from high to low level refinements. We conclude by describing tool support for the process     

A methodology for developing intelligent product manuals

This paper outlines a methodology for developing intelligent product manuals (IPMs). They are computerised interactive product support systems that employ product life-cycle information, expert knowledge, and hypermedia to provide just-in-time support to the user during the life of a product. The methodology describes the main phases in the development of an IPM. These are specification of requirements, construction of the team responsible for the production of the IPM, collection and structuring of product data and knowledge, development of the knowledge base, authoring, verification, evaluation, publishing and maintenance. The emphasis is on the user's requirements, integration of product data, utilisation of expert knowledge and the mechanisms for providing just-in-time support. The methodology explains how knowledge about products, users, and their tasks can be integrated and used to deliver user-tailored and task-specific product support. The solutions proposed in the paper are illustrated with examples based on prototypes developed for a manufacturer of all-terrain forklift trucks.     

A methodology for developing computer-based teaching programs

As the use of computers in higher education increases so the institutions concerned are recognising the need to use methods which will produce teaching programs on schedule and to pre-defined standards. At the Cambridge University Engineering Department a set of processes have been adapted to form a complete development methodology which is particularly relevant to teaching programs. Six months of practical experience in the use of the methodology has now been accumulated and this has been favourable. Further work will be carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching programs developed.     

A new methodology of mobile robot navigation: The agoraphilic algorithm

The Agoraphilic algorithm is an optimistic approach to reactive path planning for mobile robot platforms. The technique uses virtual, attractive forces derived from the surrounding free space. Fuzzy logic is utilised to limit the ‘free-space’ force so as to promote the movement towards the goal. The algorithm was designed to be a robust technique for reactive navigation that could be implemented without the fuss of tuning the sensitive parameters required for other classical navigation routines. Several simulations plus some preliminary experimental results are presented here to demonstrate the algorithm's potential.     

A hardware-software codesign methodology for DSP applications

The authors describe a systematic, heterogeneous design methodology using the Ptolemy framework for simulation, prototyping, and software synthesis of systems containing a mixture of hardware and software components. They focus on signal-processing systems in which the hardware typically consists of custom data paths, finite-state machines (FSMs), glue logic and programmable processors. The software is one or more embedded programs running on the programmable components     

SelfMotion: A declarative approach for adaptive service-oriented mobile applications

Modern society increasingly relies on mobile devices. This explains the growing demand for high quality software for such devices. To improve the efficiency of the development life-cycle, shortening time-to-market while keeping quality under control, mobile applications are typically developed by composing together ad-hoc developed components, services available on-line, and other third-party mobile applications. Applications are thus built as heterogeneous compositions, whose characteristics strongly depend on the components and services they integrate. To cope with unpredictable changes and failures, but also with the various settings offered by the plethora of available devices, mobile applications need to be as adaptive as possible. However, mainstream adaptation strategies are usually defined imperatively and require complex control strategies strongly intertwined with the application logic, yielding to applications that are difficult to build, maintain, and evolve. We address this issue by proposing a declarative approach to compose adaptive heterogeneous mobile applications. The advantages of this approach are demonstrated through an example inspired by an existing worldwide distributed mobile application, while the implementation of the proposed solution has been validated through a set of simulations and experiments aimed at illustrating its performance.