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1.
Hanyang Hu; Shaowei Wang; Cor-Paul Bezemer; Ahmed E. Hassan
Studying the Consistency of Star Ratings, Reviews and Releases of Top Free Hybrid Android and iOS Apps Journal Article
The Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EMSE), 24 (1), pp. 7–32, 2019.
Abstract | BibTeX | Tags: Mobile apps, Star rating, Twitter-LDA, User reviews
@article{hu17hybrid,
title = {Studying the Consistency of Star Ratings, Reviews and Releases of Top Free Hybrid Android and iOS Apps},
author = {Hanyang Hu and Shaowei Wang and Cor-Paul Bezemer and Ahmed E. Hassan},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-02-15},
urldate = {2019-02-15},
journal = {The Empirical Software Engineering Journal (EMSE)},
volume = {24},
number = {1},
pages = {7--32},
publisher = {Springer},
abstract = {Nowadays, many developers make their mobile apps available on multiple platforms (e.g., Android and iOS). However, maintaining several versions of a cross-platform app that is built natively (i.e., using platform-specific tools) is a complicated task. Instead, developers can choose to use hybrid development tools, such as PhoneGap, to build hybrid apps. Hybrid apps are based on a single codebase across platforms. There exist two ways to use a hybrid development tool to build a hybrid app that runs on multiple platforms: (1) using web technologies (i.e., HTML, Javascript and CSS) and (2) in a common language, which is then converted to native code.
We study whether these hybrid development tools achieve their main purpose: delivering an app that is perceived similarly by users across platforms. Prior studies show that users refer to star ratings and user reviews, when deciding to download an app. Given the importance of star ratings and user reviews, we study whether the usage of a hybrid development tool assists app developers in achieving consistency in the star ratings and user reviews across multiple platforms.
We study 68 hybrid app-pairs, i.e., apps that exist both in the Google Play store and Apple App store. We find that 33 out of 68 hybrid apps do not receive consistent star ratings across platforms. We run Twitter-LDA on user reviews and find that the star ratings of the reviews that discuss the same topic could be up to three times as high across platforms. Our findings suggest that while hybrid apps are better at providing consistent star ratings and user reviews when compared to cross-platform apps that are built natively, hybrid apps do not guarantee such consistency. Hence, developers should not solely rely on hybrid development tools to achieve consistency in the star ratings and reviews that are given by users of their apps. In particular, developers should track closely the ratings and reviews of their apps across platforms, so that they can act accordingly when platform-specific issues arise.},
keywords = {Mobile apps, Star rating, Twitter-LDA, User reviews},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Nowadays, many developers make their mobile apps available on multiple platforms (e.g., Android and iOS). However, maintaining several versions of a cross-platform app that is built natively (i.e., using platform-specific tools) is a complicated task. Instead, developers can choose to use hybrid development tools, such as PhoneGap, to build hybrid apps. Hybrid apps are based on a single codebase across platforms. There exist two ways to use a hybrid development tool to build a hybrid app that runs on multiple platforms: (1) using web technologies (i.e., HTML, Javascript and CSS) and (2) in a common language, which is then converted to native code.
We study whether these hybrid development tools achieve their main purpose: delivering an app that is perceived similarly by users across platforms. Prior studies show that users refer to star ratings and user reviews, when deciding to download an app. Given the importance of star ratings and user reviews, we study whether the usage of a hybrid development tool assists app developers in achieving consistency in the star ratings and user reviews across multiple platforms.
We study 68 hybrid app-pairs, i.e., apps that exist both in the Google Play store and Apple App store. We find that 33 out of 68 hybrid apps do not receive consistent star ratings across platforms. We run Twitter-LDA on user reviews and find that the star ratings of the reviews that discuss the same topic could be up to three times as high across platforms. Our findings suggest that while hybrid apps are better at providing consistent star ratings and user reviews when compared to cross-platform apps that are built natively, hybrid apps do not guarantee such consistency. Hence, developers should not solely rely on hybrid development tools to achieve consistency in the star ratings and reviews that are given by users of their apps. In particular, developers should track closely the ratings and reviews of their apps across platforms, so that they can act accordingly when platform-specific issues arise.
We study whether these hybrid development tools achieve their main purpose: delivering an app that is perceived similarly by users across platforms. Prior studies show that users refer to star ratings and user reviews, when deciding to download an app. Given the importance of star ratings and user reviews, we study whether the usage of a hybrid development tool assists app developers in achieving consistency in the star ratings and user reviews across multiple platforms.
We study 68 hybrid app-pairs, i.e., apps that exist both in the Google Play store and Apple App store. We find that 33 out of 68 hybrid apps do not receive consistent star ratings across platforms. We run Twitter-LDA on user reviews and find that the star ratings of the reviews that discuss the same topic could be up to three times as high across platforms. Our findings suggest that while hybrid apps are better at providing consistent star ratings and user reviews when compared to cross-platform apps that are built natively, hybrid apps do not guarantee such consistency. Hence, developers should not solely rely on hybrid development tools to achieve consistency in the star ratings and reviews that are given by users of their apps. In particular, developers should track closely the ratings and reviews of their apps across platforms, so that they can act accordingly when platform-specific issues arise.
2.
Hanyang Hu; Cor-Paul Bezemer; Ahmed E. Hassan
Studying the Consistency of Star Ratings and Complaints in 1 & 2-Star User Reviews for Top Free Cross-Platform Android and iOS Apps Journal Article
The Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) journal, 23 (6), pp. 3442–3475, 2018.
Abstract | BibTeX | Tags: Mobile apps, Star rating, User reviews
@article{hu16crossplatform,
title = {Studying the Consistency of Star Ratings and Complaints in 1 & 2-Star User Reviews for Top Free Cross-Platform Android and iOS Apps},
author = {Hanyang Hu and Cor-Paul Bezemer and Ahmed E. Hassan},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-03-22},
urldate = {2018-03-22},
journal = {The Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) journal},
volume = {23},
number = {6},
pages = {3442--3475},
publisher = {Springer},
abstract = {How users rate a mobile app via star ratings and user reviews is of utmost importance for the success of an app. Recent studies and surveys show that users rely heavily on star ratings and user reviews that are provided by other users, for deciding which app to download. However, understanding star ratings and user reviews is a complicated matter, since they are influenced by many factors such as the actual quality of the app and how the user perceives such quality relative to their expectations, which are in turn influenced by their prior experiences and expectations relative to other apps on the platform (e.g., iOS versus Android). Nevertheless, star ratings and user reviews provide developers with valuable information for improving the software quality of their app.
In an effort to expand their revenue and reach more users, app developers commonly build cross-platform apps, i.e., apps that are available on multiple platforms. As star ratings and user reviews are of such importance in the mobile app industry, it is essential for developers of cross-platform apps to maintain a consistent level of star ratings and user reviews for their apps across the various platforms on which they are available.
In this paper, we investigate whether cross-platform apps achieve a consistent level of star ratings and user reviews. We manually identify 19 cross-platform apps and conduct an empirical study on their star ratings and user reviews. By manually tagging 9,902 1 & 2-star reviews of the studied cross-platform apps, we discover that the distribution of the frequency of complaint types varies across platforms. Finally, we study the negative impact ratio of complaint types and find that for some apps, users have higher expectations on one platform. All our proposed techniques and our methodologies are generic and can be used for any app. Our findings show that at least 68% of the studied cross-platform apps do not have consistent star ratings, which suggests that different quality assurance efforts need to be considered by developers for the different platforms that they wish to support.},
keywords = {Mobile apps, Star rating, User reviews},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
How users rate a mobile app via star ratings and user reviews is of utmost importance for the success of an app. Recent studies and surveys show that users rely heavily on star ratings and user reviews that are provided by other users, for deciding which app to download. However, understanding star ratings and user reviews is a complicated matter, since they are influenced by many factors such as the actual quality of the app and how the user perceives such quality relative to their expectations, which are in turn influenced by their prior experiences and expectations relative to other apps on the platform (e.g., iOS versus Android). Nevertheless, star ratings and user reviews provide developers with valuable information for improving the software quality of their app.
In an effort to expand their revenue and reach more users, app developers commonly build cross-platform apps, i.e., apps that are available on multiple platforms. As star ratings and user reviews are of such importance in the mobile app industry, it is essential for developers of cross-platform apps to maintain a consistent level of star ratings and user reviews for their apps across the various platforms on which they are available.
In this paper, we investigate whether cross-platform apps achieve a consistent level of star ratings and user reviews. We manually identify 19 cross-platform apps and conduct an empirical study on their star ratings and user reviews. By manually tagging 9,902 1 & 2-star reviews of the studied cross-platform apps, we discover that the distribution of the frequency of complaint types varies across platforms. Finally, we study the negative impact ratio of complaint types and find that for some apps, users have higher expectations on one platform. All our proposed techniques and our methodologies are generic and can be used for any app. Our findings show that at least 68% of the studied cross-platform apps do not have consistent star ratings, which suggests that different quality assurance efforts need to be considered by developers for the different platforms that they wish to support.
In an effort to expand their revenue and reach more users, app developers commonly build cross-platform apps, i.e., apps that are available on multiple platforms. As star ratings and user reviews are of such importance in the mobile app industry, it is essential for developers of cross-platform apps to maintain a consistent level of star ratings and user reviews for their apps across the various platforms on which they are available.
In this paper, we investigate whether cross-platform apps achieve a consistent level of star ratings and user reviews. We manually identify 19 cross-platform apps and conduct an empirical study on their star ratings and user reviews. By manually tagging 9,902 1 & 2-star reviews of the studied cross-platform apps, we discover that the distribution of the frequency of complaint types varies across platforms. Finally, we study the negative impact ratio of complaint types and find that for some apps, users have higher expectations on one platform. All our proposed techniques and our methodologies are generic and can be used for any app. Our findings show that at least 68% of the studied cross-platform apps do not have consistent star ratings, which suggests that different quality assurance efforts need to be considered by developers for the different platforms that they wish to support.