Supporting view transition design of smartphone applications using web templates

Abstract

Many developers have implemented native smartphone applications (NSAs) that have the same functionalities as those of existing web applications (WAs). They need to redesign web pages as views of NSAs owing to their constraints, such as compact displays. However, it can produce a NSA with low global navigability. We propose a framework that can support developers in designing view transitions of NSAs on the basis of WAs. We focus on web templates to leverage well-designed web page transitions. Our framework 1) extracts a page transition model from a WA to create candidate view transitions of a NSA, 2) provides an interface where developers design these views to solve the constraints, and 3) suggests design modifications to increase global navigability calculated by proposed criteria of navigation costs for users. After examining case studies, we concluded that our framework could support developers to design easy-to-navigate NSAs. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.