Web-Based Parametric Effort Estimation for Mobile Application Development

Abstract

Estimation methods are continuously being adapted to obtain better and clearer estimations needed to achieve development goals. Some estimation methods were invented before the modern mobile application technology that is currently available. Thus, these methods are unable to cater to the requirements for estimating modern mobile application features. The objective of this paper is to propose a web-based system as a method to estimate the effort and cost of developing a mobile application. The key idea behind this study is to identify cost drivers that can be applied in mobile application development through literature review. From the analysis, 19 cost drivers are found to fit the vision of this study. In addition, this study also seeks to investigate the price range of cost drivers acquired from existing similar systems. The total price range is accumulated, and the mean value of each cost driver is obtained, which is then inserted further into the new estimation metric. The proposed system is then evaluated by comparing the obtained results with six similar systems according to basic user needs requirements in an application. The results demonstrate that the proposed system is a more enhanced cost estimation software that contains more cost driver options, which users can utilize to estimate mobile application development costs.

Keywords

• software effort estimation
• parametric estimation
• mobile application
• estimation system