Emulating a Native Mobile Experience with Cross-platform Applications

Abstract: This thesis compares a native Android application with two different classes of cross-platform applications, an interpreted application developed in React Native and a Progressive Web-Application (PWA). The main contribution of the thesis is a comparison table, placing application features on the y-axis and the evaluated frameworks on the x-axis. This table in conjunction with the cost analysis provide clear framework selection guidance. The evaluated applications were created to evaluate the frameworks' fulfillment of the enumerated features. A user study was performed to learn if there was any discernible difference between the evaluated applications. Qualitative data obtained from a think-aloud in the user study, indicates a slight preference for the PWA, despite a smaller feature set. However, quantitative analysis from a User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) failed to show any systematic UX performance difference over the evaluated applications. Therefore, it is concluded that cross-platform applications are able to both emulate and even outperform a native experience in some regards, with the added advantage of significantly offsetting both development and maintenance costs. Finally, we recommend using a cross-platform mobile application framework if it provides all the features required by the intended application.