Evaluation of Cross-Platform Mobile Development ToolsDevelopment of an Evaluation Framework

Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to determine what cross-platform mobile development tool that is best suited for Vitec and their mobile application ”Teknisk Förvaltning”. But more importantly we will in this thesis develop a generic evaluation framework for assessing cross-platform mobile development tools. With the purpose of making it easy to select the most appropriate tool for a specific mobile application. This was achieved by first, in consideration with Vitec, selecting Cordova + Ionic and Xamarin. Forms as the cross-platform tools to be evaluated. Then secondly by proposing an evaluation framework containing criteria evolved from discussions with mobile application developers, experience gained by developing prototype applications using the tools to be evaluated and through literature studies. The initial framework was also refined by investigating what other research exists in the area and by learning from their methods and conclusions we refined our initial evaluation framework. The result of performing the evaluation using the suggested evaluation framework is visualized in a result table, where the fulfilment of each criteria is graded from one to five. By allowing Vitec to rank how important these criteria are for their application, we were able to determine which of the tools that was the best fit for their application. We have thereby succeed in developing a generic evaluation framework which can be used to asses any cross-platform mobile development tool.