Live Versioning of Web Applications through Refactoring

Abstract

Client-Side Web Refactorings (CSWRs) allow improving interaction aspects of web applications by applying changes to the user interface without altering the code base, even in production settings. However, developers are not always willing, or allowed to apply external adaptations to their applications' user interface. Besides, CSWRs do not guarantee improvements in all contexts, so it may be unwise to install them in a production version. We propose a tool that allows creating private versions of a running web application almost automatically. With this tool, developers or usability experts can combine CSWRs to create alternative versions of web applications, without requiring a cloned sandbox environment for each one. This yields many uses, such as quickly setting up user tests, showing live alternatives to Product Owners, or performing A/B testing. The tool is built on top of Kobold, a service that allows applying CSWRs to fix usability smells. The tool is available at https://bit.ly/2nhQ2MD. A screencast is available at https://youtu.be/LVc3BOtVP3I.