Investigating Effort Estimation Techniques for Mobile Applications: An Efficient Approach

Estimating the effort of mobile applications is essential because many of the applications are now working on mobile platforms. A need exists to understand the difference between Effort Estimation for mobile applications and other computer applications. The last decade has seen a revolution in the use of mobile applications, which has caused in an exponential increase in the total number of mobile phone users worldwide. The first objective of this work is related to the software industry, and that is to identify which techniques are used for calculating the effort of mobile applications. The first objective also dwells into the identification of the accuracy that was achieved by using those techniques. The second objective is to propose an efficient approach for the effort estimation of mobile applications. A 5+1 methodology is suggested which should be accommodated when proposing a model for the effort estimation of mobile applications. The proposed methodology is validated through intensive investigation of the literature and it is believed that if this 5+1 methodology is adopted, the proposed model will surely bring excellent results in terms of accuracy of the predicted effort that the proposed model will attain. A small case study is also mentioned as a starting point for the validation of the 5+1 proposed methodology and it shows how the methodology can be utilized for the effort estimation of a simple mobile application.