Visual Mobile Computing for Mobile End-Users
Abstract: We present an approach to enable end-users to graphically compose their own applications directly on their mobile phone, mainly integrating the functionalities available on the device and those provided by pervasive and Internet services. To this aim, we propose a methodology and a graphical notation enabling the user to compose mobile applications, named MicroApps: the user creates an application following an incremental and iterative development process; he composes icons representing (pervasive) services mainly by touch-based selection and following a data-flow approach. He is not in charge of the creation of the user interface, which is automatically generated. The methodology enables the end-user to develop applications and/or compose services on the smartphone, so paving the way towards new scenarios where smartphones replace and overtake the Personal Computer, given their native possibility of wide connectivity, when augmented by features for interaction with remote systems and sensors. The methodology has been evaluated through an empirical analysis that revealed that in spite of the reduced size of the screen the use of the MicroApp Generator tool improves the effectiveness in terms of time and editing errors with respect to the use of MIT App Inventor [1] .