Testing Mobile Web Applications for W3C Best Practice Compliance

Abstract

Adherence to best practices and standards when developing mobile web applications is important to achieving a quality outcome. As smartphones and tablet PCs continue to proliferate in the consumer electronics market, businesses and individuals are increasingly turning from the native application paradigm to HTML 5-based web applications as a means of software development and distribution. With an everincreasing reliance by users on the correct functioning of such applications, the requirement for stringent and comprehensive quality assurance measures is also brought sharply into focus. This research investigates the increasing trend towards mobile web application development in the mobile software domain, and assesses the requirement for an automated approach to best practice validation testing for mobile web applications. Contemporary approaches to automated web application testing are examined, with particular emphasis on issues relating to mobile web application tests. The individual guidelines proposed by the W3C Mobile Web Application Best Practices are analysed and where applicable automated conformance tests are implemented in a customised testing tool. A range of mobile web applications are tested using this tool in order to examine the extent to which implementation of the tested-for guidelines is detected. Automated tests were successfully implemented in respect of nearly 60% of the best practices