ANET-MobilityLab – Testlab for Mobile Services
Tourism is usually regarded as one of the prime application fields for mobile devices. They allow travellers to access services at any time by using portable devices, such as mobile phones. Previous mobile solutions have shown that – provided that they are based on a feasible business model and a software development process that has been aligned for mobile solutions – they benefit both users and providers equally.
The MobilityLab project identifies critical factors in the software development process and develops evaluation and simulation methods for an iterative testing of mobile applications. Against this background MobilityLab focuses on two types of testing:
Evaluation of mobile services
Since mobile services have a very short time-to-market period, they regularly suffer from technical deficiencies and bugs, which often only surface when customers are using them in practice. If that happens customers get angry and, as a result, these or similar applications are not taken-up by the market.
Comprehensive software tests can help to detect technical shortcomings and bugs before applications are introduced into the market. Also, if detected early on, shortcomings can be corrected with relatively little effort and costs during the development process. Hence the development of test methods for mobile applications and their integration into the software development process are core activities of the MobilityLab.
User take-up tests
A major challenge in the software development process is the ability to assess the potential of new services as early as possible. Generally the testing of new services is most efficient if it is done on-site, in a real-case scenario. However, often a lot of effort has already been invested at this stage of the development. The MobilityLab project therefore develops a software framework that allows the evaluation of simulated prototypes or prototypes with limited functionalities.
To maximise knowledge transfer the project also hosts biannual transfer workshops on related themes.
