Experience on the development of a ComSoc application for smart phones

The "smart big bang" has changed the way online content is presented and consumed. Traditionally, most service providers have created their own web pages and developed loyal customers to support their online content on the Internet. However, as smart devices have become more popular, service providers have started creating new web applications optimized for smart devices by reusing existing online content. Despite their costly efforts, delivering online content to customers using those web applications continues to be difficult. This is mainly due to the limitations of web applications in supporting all the characteristics of smart devices. Our proposed application is one example of a ComSoc smart phone application adapted from a traditional ComSoc web application using a mixed approach of mobile web and native applications. This article presents the overall process for developing a ComSoc smart phone application, including requirement analysis, system architecture design, and implementation. We also present key lessons learned from our overall experience during design and development.