AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile Applications
Mobile app developers often encounter a significant challenge in developing well-structured mobile apps capable of supporting multiple platforms and diverse functional requirements. The main current practice involves coding versions for different platforms separately using traditional software devel...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IEEE
2025-01-01
|
| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10857322/ |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1823859604127219712 |
|---|---|
| author | Lyan Alwakeel Kevin Lano Hessa Alfraihi |
| author_facet | Lyan Alwakeel Kevin Lano Hessa Alfraihi |
| author_sort | Lyan Alwakeel |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Mobile app developers often encounter a significant challenge in developing well-structured mobile apps capable of supporting multiple platforms and diverse functional requirements. The main current practice involves coding versions for different platforms separately using traditional software development methods. Implementing any changes across these variants requires manual effort, demanding a significant amount of time and resources. In response, software engineering has focused on improving the development process to create high-quality mobile applications. One promising approach is Model-Driven Development (MDD), which generates low-level code from high-level models, enabling developers to “write once, run anywhere”. This paper proposes AppCraft, an MDD-based framework designed for developing cross-platform mobile apps. AppCraft facilitates the generation of complex, intelligent, and well-structured apps by addresses three types of variations in mobile apps: platform-related variations, built-in capabilities, and app functionalities. Additionally, this paper describes the use of AppCraft for supporting the integration of machine learning models in mobile apps. The framework comprises a domain-specific language, a text-based modelling editor, and a set of model-to-code transformations. The framework’s applicability was assessed by automatically generating the implementation of eight different case studies in the healthcare domain. Additionally, the productivity was evaluated by comparing the time and effort required using AppCraft versus a manual coding process. As part of the evaluation, a usability study was conducted to assess the usability of AppCraft-generated apps. The results demonstrate that AppCraft is applicable and beneficial for the automated generation of usable mobile apps, highlighting significant reductions in development time and effort. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-42622b55d89f4e909b3c1762d99f54b7 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj-art-42622b55d89f4e909b3c1762d99f54b72025-02-11T00:01:37ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-0113236582369910.1109/ACCESS.2025.353632110857322AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile ApplicationsLyan Alwakeel0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3779-9939Kevin Lano1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9706-1410Hessa Alfraihi2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8169-3766Department of Informatics, King’s College London, Bush House, London, U.K.Department of Informatics, King’s College London, Bush House, London, U.K.Department of Information Systems, College of Computer and Information Sciences, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaMobile app developers often encounter a significant challenge in developing well-structured mobile apps capable of supporting multiple platforms and diverse functional requirements. The main current practice involves coding versions for different platforms separately using traditional software development methods. Implementing any changes across these variants requires manual effort, demanding a significant amount of time and resources. In response, software engineering has focused on improving the development process to create high-quality mobile applications. One promising approach is Model-Driven Development (MDD), which generates low-level code from high-level models, enabling developers to “write once, run anywhere”. This paper proposes AppCraft, an MDD-based framework designed for developing cross-platform mobile apps. AppCraft facilitates the generation of complex, intelligent, and well-structured apps by addresses three types of variations in mobile apps: platform-related variations, built-in capabilities, and app functionalities. Additionally, this paper describes the use of AppCraft for supporting the integration of machine learning models in mobile apps. The framework comprises a domain-specific language, a text-based modelling editor, and a set of model-to-code transformations. The framework’s applicability was assessed by automatically generating the implementation of eight different case studies in the healthcare domain. Additionally, the productivity was evaluated by comparing the time and effort required using AppCraft versus a manual coding process. As part of the evaluation, a usability study was conducted to assess the usability of AppCraft-generated apps. The results demonstrate that AppCraft is applicable and beneficial for the automated generation of usable mobile apps, highlighting significant reductions in development time and effort.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10857322/Mobile appsmodel-drivenlow codeclean architecturemachine learning |
| spellingShingle | Lyan Alwakeel Kevin Lano Hessa Alfraihi AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile Applications IEEE Access Mobile apps model-driven low code clean architecture machine learning |
| title | AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile Applications |
| title_full | AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile Applications |
| title_fullStr | AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile Applications |
| title_full_unstemmed | AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile Applications |
| title_short | AppCraft: Model-Driven Development Framework for Mobile Applications |
| title_sort | appcraft model driven development framework for mobile applications |
| topic | Mobile apps model-driven low code clean architecture machine learning |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10857322/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT lyanalwakeel appcraftmodeldrivendevelopmentframeworkformobileapplications AT kevinlano appcraftmodeldrivendevelopmentframeworkformobileapplications AT hessaalfraihi appcraftmodeldrivendevelopmentframeworkformobileapplications |