Design criteria and software metrics for efficient and effective web-enabled mobile applications

Design of Web-enabled mobile applications is a complex task as mobile-wireless systems have special emphasis on quality of service (QoS) that covers network bandwidth usage, response time, failure rates, recovery time and others. Beside network constraints, mobile applications have limitations in terms of display size, local storage capacity, processing power, cache memory and battery life time that affect mobile system design features. QoS is related to quality in use features, such as efficiency and effectiveness that characterize quality of the system while it is in use. This research studies software metrics related to the design of mobile system components and their effect on QoS and quality in use. The research classifies the metrics as related to abstraction, coupling, data complexity and file transfer properties. Application of proposed metrics on a real-case Web-enabled mobile application indicates system design criteria required to improve QoS.