Informing the design of new mobile development methods and tools

Abstract

Given the proliferation of new mobile devices and different technologies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to develop for mobile settings. To gain a better understanding of the engineering problem and how developers currently work, we conducted a 14-week experiment with four developers. Using a diary study, we analysed commonalities and differences between various native mobile and web-based approaches including the different kinds of tasks and the effort expended on them. We discuss implications for design and describe our current work towards better supporting multi-platform development based on our findings.