Context-Driven Progressive Enhancement of Mobile Web Applications: A Multicriteria Decision-Making Approach. (7th August 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Desruelle, Heiko; Gielen, Frank
• Is Part Of: Computer journal. Volume 58:Number 8(2015:Aug.)
• Page Start: 1732
• Page End: 1746
• Publication Date: 2014-08-07
• Subjects: mobile web applications -- context-awareness -- progressive enhancement -- multicriteria decision-making -- adaptive engineering; Computers -- Periodicals; 005.1
• DOI: 10.1093/comjnl/bxu061
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0010-4620

Abstract

Abstract : Personal computing has become all about mobile and embedded devices. As a result, the adoption rate of smartphones is rapidly increasing and this trend has set a need for mobile applications to be available at anytime, anywhere and on any device. Despite the obvious advantages of such immersive mobile applications, software developers are increasingly facing the challenges related to device fragmentation. Current application development solutions are insufficiently prepared for handling the enormous variety of software platforms and hardware characteristics covering the mobile eco-system. As a result, maintaining a viable balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue when developing mobile applications. This article proposes a context-aware software platform for the development and delivery of self-adaptive mobile applications over the Web. An adaptive application composition approach is introduced, capable of autonomously bypassing context-related fragmentation issues. This goal is achieved by incorporating and validating the concept of fine-grained progressive application enhancements based on a multicriteria decision-making strategy.