Towards context-aware behaviour generation

The development of mobile applications in the creative industry sector shows a very positive increase in the form of digital product production in keeping with current developments in the world of technology. In developing these mobile applications, it is necessary to look at the use of design principles in being a guide in development. The use of design principles in the development of mobile applications helps developers in developing quality mobile applications and achieve a positive level of usability from the users. To determine the design elements of design guidelines for mobile applications for the creative industry, a content analysis of the current literature was undertaken. This review was conducted on the existing design principles. A total of five existing design principles used in mobile application development from the literature were included in the review. This review shows that the use of cultural design elements in the development of mobile applications is less discussed. The results suggest that the usefulness of this cultural design element should be used in the development of mobile applications in the creative industry sector.

Mobile systems and mobile applications have gained a lot of attention both in research and industry over the last years. The market share of mobile devices is constantly growing. More and more, users expect their mobile devices to provide functionality similar to the one they know from their desktop computers, but also to provide additional, mobile device specific functionality, like location based services. However, software development for mobile devices is still cumbersome and a methodology geared towards supporting the development of such mobile applications is still lacking. While there is broad agreement that developing for mobile devices is more difficult than traditional software engineering, we lack a precise understanding that goes beyond anecdotic evidence of why this is the case and how the situation can be ameliorated. We do not precisely know where and how the development of mobile application differs from “normal” software development and where new methodologies are needed. Aspects that need to be addressed in this context are, among others, the questions of software architectures for mobile applications, approaches to the software design for mobile applications and how the consequences of being mobile, e. g., changing location, changing context, changing connectivity, heterogeneous software and platforms influence the software development process and what design approaches do reflect the specialties of mobile applications and systems appropriately. While this special issue cannot provide a definite or complete answer to these questions, it does provide answers to some important aspects. In the following, we will first try to get a more thorough understanding of some of the main differences between mobile and classical application development and will then discuss how the papers contained in this special issue address these differences.

Aim of this paper is to identify requirements on a software tool supporting end-user development of mobile ERP applications and to design an appropriate software architecture meeting the identified requirements. The paper introduces a prominent development tool for mobile ERP applications, demonstrating its weaknesses regarding the purpose of end-user development (EUD). A multi-method requirements analysis is used to identify requirements of a suitable EUD tool for mobile ERP applications. The results of the requirements analysis reveal that an EUD tool is suitable for implementing standard functions such as data display and entry functionalities. These functions could be implemented by using a set of configurable application components. These components could be used by end-users to compose individual applications. Additionally, the results indicate that a form-based interaction technique seems to be a suitable option for end-users to develop mobile ERP applications. Finally, a prototypic implementation of a web-based EUD-tool demonstrates the feasibility of the presented software architecture.KeywordsConfigure Application ComponentsBusiness Application Programming Interfaces (BAPIs)Visual Programming LanguageInterface TemplateInterface PatternsThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

<span>Persuasive design principles (PDP) of persuasive system features framework have shown impressive results from the context of user engagement and acceptance as well as continuous usage towards the persuasive systems involved. Yet, available literatures do not thoroughly address the implementation of these design principles specifically in mobile applications and there is insufficient discussion on the impact of the principles in relation to the overall achievement of mobile applications. Hence, this research was conducted with the aim to qualitatively explore the way PDP were implemented across three different levels of mobile applications’ attainment. For this study, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with the involvement of fifteen (15) Android mobile applications in the area of utilities category. These mobile applications were then categorized into three categories which is successful, partially successful and less successful based on their numbers of mobile applications downloaded for three consecutive years. The results from the content analysis revealed that each of the PDP were implemented in many ways yet the most common applied principles are reduction, tailoring and personalization. However, the analysis also shows low numbers of implementation from the system credibility and social support category. <span>In addition, most of the mobile applications of the successful category have implemented a lot more PDP as compared to the other two mobile application categories. The results from this study has provide significance towards developers, practitioners as well as the scholars from the contextual perspective of persuasive system framework also the practical values of the principles specifically the implementation in mobile application development.</span></span>

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the proceedings of the workshop held as part of SPLASH 2014! This year's Workshop continues the tradition of allowing both graduate and undergraduate students to present their ongoing work and get productive feedback on their latest results. Workshop Overview Mobile application usage and development is experiencing exponential growth. According to Gartner, by 2016 more than 300 billion applications will be downloaded annually. The mobile domain presents new challenges to software engineering. Mobile platforms are rapidly changing, including diverse capabilities as GPS, sensors, and input modes. Applications must be omni-channel and work on all platforms. Activated on mobile platforms, modern applications must be elastic and scale on demand according to the hardware abilities. Applications often need to support and use third-party services. Therefore, during development, security and authorization processes for the dataflow must be applied. Bring your own device (BYOD) policies bring new security data leaks challenges. Developing such applications requires suitable practices and tools e.g., architecture techniques that relate to the complexity at hand; improved refactoring tools for hybrid applications using dynamic languages and polyglot development and applications; and testing techniques for applications that run on different devices. This workshop aims at establishing a community of researchers and practitioners to share their work and lead further research in the mobile software engineering. The workshop has several goals. First, we want to develop relationships to create a vibrant research community in the area of mobile software development. Second, we want to identify the most important research problems for mobile software development. Our program includes: Distinguished keynote by Dr. Daniel M. Yellin the Vice President, IBM Mobile Platform Development, and an IBM Distinguished EngineerInvited talksMarco Pistoia and Omer Trip Integrating Security, Analytics and Application Management into the Mobile Development LifecycleNikolai Tillmann Rapidly Prototyping Apps for Mobile Cloud-Connected DevicesLucas Brutschy, Pietro Ferrara and Mueller Peter. Static Analysis for Independent App DevelopersPanel: "How Mobile Affects Business Processes? : The Research Perspective"Activity: "Killer Apps for Mobile Opportunity and ChallengesResearch papers Mobile software engineering presents new challenges and directions. Among others, we observe the following five areas of interest: Management of the mobile applications. This refers to the technical capabilities to create, deploy, and manage a suite of applications for multiple heterogeneous devices (e.g., iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows) that connect securely to enterprise back-end servers.Hybrid applications versus native applications. A native application is an application designed to run in a specific environment written in a specific language. A hybrid mobile application, however, is developed using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript activated by a native wrapper. Building native applications requires comprehensive knowledge in the specific environment, such as Objective C (iOS), Java (Android), and C# (Windows mobile and BlackBerry). However, hybrid applications based on web technologies require more common knowledge.User experience. Applications must be developed that provide different user experiences depending on the target environment. For example, an iOS application provides a different user experience than an Android application, even though the functionality of the application must be the same.Battery life. How can developers write software that uses up as little battery life as possible?Migrations to mobile. As more users access and use mobile-based tools, developers need to enable and support migration from legacy software such as web applications to mobile.Mobile security. Mobile devices have strong networking capabilities. Hence security of ersonal information and businesses data become very important. Employees use their smartphones to access sensitive information. The operating system of those devices collects sensitive data that may be visible to third-party applications. Hence vulnerabilities from both the web browser and operating system must be considered. Moreover, the development of mobile applications includes the following aspects that extend existing software engineering practices: Software characteristics. 1) Software is distributed on several platforms that link between them over the network. For example, one part of an application could be on mobile phones browsers, another part might be on the cloud, and both of them are reading data from some legacy systems. 2) Mobile applications need to be elastic and scale on demand according to their environments' abilities. Functionalities need to be easily removed, added, or moved to or from the cloud. 3) Many hardware platforms exist for an application and the platforms are rapidly changing, including flexible capabilities such as GPS, sensors, and input modes. Development, however, should be for all platforms.Architecture. Mobile application development also includes several architectural challenges, such as how to support omni-channel communications and how to support new application data updates from the server, e.g., notifications about new mail or software updates. Applications must be able to easily communicate with new systems. Traditional solutions enable software to be easily designed and modified to communicate with new environments. However, the environments with which applications need to communicate are rapidly changing. As a result, traditional solutions do not fit modern software and we cannot modify applications using traditional architectural approaches to support all channels.Testing. Another aspect of mobile application development concerns software testing. How can applications be tested on arbitrary and unknown hardware? And how can we develop test-driven software without being able to run the test itself?

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is becoming more prevalent among children worldwide. Three main issues that affect ASD children are behavior, communication, and social interaction. Children with special needs have the same right to engage in education, especially religious education. The main concern in delivering education to these special children is how to maximize their learning. They need teachers and parents to recognize their unique needs and abilities. ASD children have problems staying focused in learning. They are also not interested in lengthy content and linear materials such as books. Currently, the development of mobile applications is growing as many could benefit from it. This research will suggest a development of an Islamic educational mobile application for ASD children, which is built on the idea of enhancing visual and attentional skills based on play therapy. Since it is commonly known that children with ASD do not play in the same manner as regular children, the use of play therapy with ASD children has gained attention as a research topic. Auto play therapy is the term for the play therapy used with children who have ASD. The Mobile Application will include parent’s engagement as well for learning monitoring. This project was developed using Mobile Application Development Life Cycle (MADLC). The result and findings defined that most users agreed that this mobile application was easy to use, not complex, consistent, integrated well with elements and they are willing to use it frequently.

Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Social Communication Disorder (SCD) face persistent impairments in language acquisition, social communication, and daily functioning. High-technology mobile applications have demonstrated efficacy in supporting communication and language development in these populations; however, the overwhelming majority of validated applications are developed in English and culturally oriented toward Western contexts. No prior systematic review has examined the development or effectiveness of mobile applications specifically designed in Urdu, Punjabi, or Sindhi — the three primary regional languages of Pakistan and South Asia — for children with ASD or SCD. Objective: To systematically identify, characterise, and appraise the methodological quality and effectiveness of high-technology mobile applications incorporating Urdu, Punjabi, or Sindhi language support for children (aged 0–18 years) with ASD or SCD. Methods: A systematic review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Five electronic databases — PubMed/MEDLINE, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar — were searched in January 2025 from inception to search date. Two independent reviewers conducted dual screening at title/abstract and full-text stages; disagreements were resolved by consensus. Methodological quality was assessed using the Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT), JBI Quasi-Experimental Checklist, and CASP Quantitative Checklist, as appropriate to study design. Narrative synthesis was conducted using the SWiM framework. Results: Of 847 records identified, 28 studies met eligibility criteria after removal of 156 duplicates and staged screening. Seven studies constituted the core evidence base directly aligned with the review's South Asian regional language focus. Five studies incorporated Urdu as a primary application language; one study addressed Sindhi-language digital learning; no standalone study was identified for Punjabi. The only study covering all three target languages simultaneously (Hassan et al., 2025) demonstrated measurable speech production gains and significantly improved compliance. Quality scores ranged from 5 to 9 out of 10; three studies were rated High quality, one Moderate–High, two Moderate, and one Moderate–Low. The direction of reported effect was uniformly positive across all core studies, though only two employed validated, standardised outcome instruments in controlled designs. Conclusion: Urdu-language mobile applications for ASD and SCD children in Pakistan demonstrate feasibility and positive usability but lack controlled efficacy evidence. Punjabi represents a critical and entirely unaddressed evidence gap despite representing the primary language of Pakistan's largest population. Prioritised development and rigorous evaluation of Punjabi- and Sindhi-language mobile ASD applications are urgently needed to meet international inclusive education mandates and ensure linguistically equitable intervention access.

In today’s mobile-driven world, organizations face the challenge of adapting legacy Web applications to pervasive information systems, such as mobile applications, ensuring seamless accessibility across devices. This paper presents a systematic, three-phase approach to reengineering Web applications into mobile applications: Reverse-engineering, Transformation, and Forward-engineering. In the reverse-engineering phase, high-level conceptual models of the Web application are generated to capture its architecture and functionality. During the transformation phase, these models are refined using Unified Modeling Language (UML) profiles to align with the requirements of mobile systems. The forward-engineering phase utilizes the Acceleo technology, along with predefined mapping rules and code patterns, to automate the generation of mobile application code. A case study is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of this framework, revealing a significant reduction in manual effort throughout the reengineering process. This approach offers a scalable and efficient solution for transforming Web applications into mobile applications, contributing to advancements in model-driven engineering and software reengineering.

The physical, paper-based Georgia TB Reference Guide has served as the clinical reference handbook on tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic and treatment guidelines for the state of Georgia in the United States. Supported by the Georgia Department of Public Health, the production of the 112-page palm-sized booklet was previously led by a team of Georgia-based TB experts at Emory University and printed every three-five years with updates to clinical management guidelines and TB consult contact information. However, the costs associated with editorial printing combined with delays in updating a static printed booklet with revised guidance hampered the utility of the tool. Considering the barriers with paper-based production and based on the beneficial use of apps to support the dissemination of clinical management guidance in other settings, the booklet was converted into a mobile application. This paper describes the process of developing a mobile app version of the Georgia TB Reference Guide in an easy-to-update and readily available format. We employed a user-centered design approach to develop the app, including a series of qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys. Participants included a mix of state officials and local TB experts. First, initial foundational interviews were conducted to conceptualize current utilization practices of both the paper and PDF versions of the tool. Second, the findings from the initial interviews were organized thematically and informed the design of the app, which was then beta tested by a round of previously unsampled TB experts as well as a re-sample from the initial interviews. Third, the designs were coded into developmental phases and beta tested among users of the current Georgia TB Reference Guide. Fourth, the app was published and downloaded by a pre-selected group of local users who provided answers to a follow-up survey after using the app for one month. Fifth, user growth, self-reported demographics, and app usage between February and July 2022 were recorded through automatic data metrics built into the app. The paper copy Georgia TB Reference Guide usage themes included commonly referenced content, navigation paths, and desired features and content. The themes were converted into features and designs such as prioritizing commonly reviewed topics and guide customization with bookmarks and notes. Iterations of the designs were driven by feedback from TB experts and included home page featured content, improving content readability, and improving the search feature. The follow-up survey revealed a 90% preference for the app over the paper version of the guide. In the six months following the app's release, the app was downloaded by 281 individuals in the United States. The majority of downloads were in Georgia and the app also expanded organically to 19 other states. The experience of converting the Georgia TB Reference Guide offers specific and effective steps to converting a medical reference guide into a mobile application tool that is readily available, easy to use, and easy to update. The organic dissemination of the app beyond the state of Georgia's borders within the first six months of app launch underscores desire among TB healthcare professionals for high-quality digital reference content outside the state. This experience offers clear outlines for replication in other contexts and demonstrates the utility of similar mobile medical reference tools.

In the nowadays enterprise computerized context, there is a trend that shifts the business applications to the new mobile environments. In the light of this information, it is highly important to be knowledgeable about the software development methodologies available in order to make the right choice when it comes to developing a mobile application. The current research aims to presenting the methodological approaches regarding the development cycle of classic enterprise software versus mobile apps. In the first part of the paper a brief literature review regarding the mobile is made, for the purpose of justifying the current research theme. The most consistent part of the article puts face-to-face the classical and the new development methodologies adapted to the requirements of the new mobile environment trends. The paper also presents the challenges and limitations of mobile applications as well as few of the future trends in the researched domain.Keywords: Application 's Lifecycle Models, Agile Models, Mobile Environment, Mobile Apps1 Introduction to Mobile ApplicationsMobile applications, also referred to as mobile apps, are software applications that are usually designed to be ran on smart phones and tablet computers [1], The term apps had become extremely popular and, as a consequence, in 2010 was listed as Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society. Mobile applications are available through application distribution platforms, which are managed by mobile operating system developer.There are several major trends that we believe it contributes to the boost of using the today mobile applications:* the increased availability and options to Internet connection for mobile devices;* the shift to the new mobile environments for the business applications;* cloud application's development;* the newest research findings that identifies new technologies which increased the performance of mobile device while the price remained at the same level, allowed mobile devices to became available for a wider variety of users.Another important aspect, when it comes to mobile application development, is the number of users. Thus, the number of mobile worldwide workers in 2013 is over 1 billion and accounts for about 35% of the worldwide workforce. The structure of the above ratio shows that Asia/Pacific (including Japan) have the largest total number of mobile workers, 785 million, while the second place is taken by Western Europe whose mobile workforce reached 129.5 million in 2013 and accounts for about half of the Western European workforce population. The study [2] also highlights that US has the highest percentage of mobile workers in its workforce, with 75.5% by the end 2013 accounting to 119.7 million mobile workers. A quick glimpse to the future is displayed in the two most recent studies which predict that mobile worker population will reach 1.2 billion by 2014 (a VDC study [3]) and 1.3 billion by 2015 (an IDC study [4]).Every day, hundred thousands of mobile devices are sold and about the same number of applications is downloaded. By 2015, International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts [5] that 182.7 billion mobile will be downloaded. That's a 1600 % increase from the 10.7 billion downloaded in 2010. This information highlights the mobile user's appetite for a wide range of software applications.Cloud application development brings innovation [6] to mobile computing as mobile devices use clouds for a wide range of purposes, from data processing and data storage to other intensive data and information transactions. So far, there are few mobile cloud applications (like Google Maps, Gmail for iPhone and Cisco's WebEx on iPad and several others that use Software as a Service model) but the trend is highly increasing.The main purpose of the paper is to present the methodologies for developing classic enterprise application versus mobile applications. …

Mobile Applications Development has been the trend for the previous year to revolutionize the teaching and learning process. These technologies were designed to improve the quality of education for all types of learners, more specifically for learners who have learning difficulties like dyslexia. Learners having this learning disorder oftentimes have difficulty in reading and writing. The use of conventional instruction is challenged for this learner. With the advent of technology, specifically mobile assistive application development helps implement more dynamic, effective and efficient teaching strategies, thus provides an opportunity to improve the learning of the students. This study aimed to develop a mobile assistive application name Individualized Reading Enhancing Application for Dyslexia (IREAD) which primarily implements text-to-speech technology to enhance the reading capability of learners with dyslexia. Unity 3D is utilized in the development of the application and web support is present to manage learning resources of the application. Moreover, usability evaluation is performed to determine the overall usability of the application, with the following dimensions effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of support, ease of learning and satisfaction. The 10 participants who were teachers teaching in specialized education answered the usability questionnaire. Results show that the overall usability of the IREAD application is immensely positive.

Today’s mobile devices and networks enable the development of novel mobile service applications. Developing such applications raises many challenges including heterogeneity in terms of mobile operating systems and APIs, service availability and scalability, and providing for the diverse communication needs of different applications. In this paper, we present an overview of the Odin middleware platform whose aim is to address these challenges. Odin utilises a surrogate-based architectural model to promote a mobile service’s scalability and availability. The middleware is reconfigurable, allowing mobile applications to adapt to changing operating conditions and minimise resource consumption. It also includes an optimised communication channel that masks the complexity of interacting with mobile services over mobile telecommunications networks. Using Odin’s interfaces and standards compliance, mobile applications and services with consistent communication behaviour can be easily implemented on heterogeneous platforms. Through quantitative evaluation, Odin’s message-based communication primitives have been demonstrated to perform favourably with leading industry push messaging providers.

Several studies indicate that students frequently make errors when determining the resulting reflection of geometric transformations. On the other hand, several studies mention that mobile applications have been proven effective in reducing conceptual errors in learning geometric transformations. Additionally, some experts argue that computational thinking is a skill students need to master, and it is on par with reading, writing, and arithmetic. Therefore, this study aims to design and evaluate a mobile application specifically developed to support the achievement of computational thinking skills by learning geometric transformations in middle school. The method used was Research and Development (R&D), which begins with a development stage involving needs analysis, learning material and curriculum analysis, and application design. The evaluation phase involved testing the application's validity, practicality, and effectiveness on 51 ninth-grade students from two different schools in Indonesia. The research findings indicate that: (1) the developed mobile application was proven valid based on aspects of material, language, and media feasibility; (2) the developed mobile application was proven effective in achieving middle school students' computational thinking skills with student average scores exceeding the minimum passing grade; (3) the developed mobile application was proven practical based on student response questionnaire results. These research results contribute to developing mobile applications in mathematics learning to achieve higher-order thinking skills among students.

AB0280 Mobile Application for Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) as a Supporting Tool for Disease Activity Monitoring: Its Usability and Interoperability

Despite mobile medical apps becoming an increasingly important part of the healthcare industry, developers still find it challenging to understand what exactly is required when a mobile healthcare application fulfils the definition of a medical device both in terms of safety and security. To date, the authors have developed and piloted a medical device software process framework called MDevSPICE® that integrates processes from various medical device software standards as well as generic software development best practice standards. This paper describes current research that extends the MDevSPICE® framework to assist organizations developing mobile application software that meets the definition of a medical device and therefore has to be developed in compliance with medical device regulations. This can be a challenge for developers of mobile applications as such applications are normally developed in a much faster and less documented manner than traditional prescribed and plan driven medical device software development. We will describe our approach that increases the flexibility of the MDevSPICE® framework through replacing rigid plan-driven practices with agile practices that are more suitable for the development of mobile medical applications.