Assessing the Benefits of AJAX in Mobile Leaming Systems Design Feng Xie Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master of Information Sciences at Massey University Auckland, New Zealand ih December 2007 Assessing the Benefits of AJAX in Mobile Leaming Systems Design STATEMENT OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY I declare that this research study is entirely the product of my own work and that it has not been taken from the work of others. When the work and ideas of others has been used in the study, the work has been properly cited in the text. Feng Xie Low Risk Notification Statement This project has been evaluated by peer view and judged to be low risk Consequently, it has not been reviewed by one of the University's Human Ethics Committees. The researcher(s) named above are responsible for the ethical conduct of this research. If you have any concerns about the conduct of this research that you wish to raise with someone other hat the researcher(s), please contact Professor Sylvia Rumball, Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor (Ethics & Equity), telephone 06 350 5249, e-mail Humaneth ics@massey.ac. nz. Page 2 of128 Assessing the Benefits of AJAX in Mobile Leaming Systems Design ABSTRACT Today, mobile technology is rapidly changing our life with increasing numbers of services supported by mobile phones, including mobile Internet access and Web-based mobile learning. The growth of the wireless Internet technology opens new path for people to study in anytime and any location. Using Web-based mobile application to present learning resources for mobile learners is a challenge for developers, because the mobile Internet access performance over GPRS networks is often unacceptably slow. A new Web development model, Ajax, may help to address this problem. Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), is a new desktop approach to Web application development that uses client-side scripting to provide a seamless user application experience and reduce traffic between client and server. In this paper, we address the question of whether mobile Ajax provides measurable performance advantages over non-Ajax mobile learning applications. A real-life Web-based mobile learning application performance over a GPRS network study was done based on comparing an Ajax application and an Active Server Pages (ASP) application with identical functionality. Our results suggest that mobile Ajax can reduce the bandwidth requirement by 71 %, and cut the server's response time in half. In addition, these performance improvements were noticed by users in our small group usability test. Page 3 of128 Assessing the Benefits of AJAX in Mobile Leaming Systems Design ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sincere thanks to the Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, for their generosity in letting us use their computing resources to conduct our experiments. Page 4 of 128 Assessing the Benefits of AJAX in Mobile Leaming Systems Design Table of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................. .. ...... ........... ... .............................................. .. ..... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................. .... ............ ........ .. .. .... .. .... ...... .. .. ............. . 4 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................. .. ..................... .. ................ ......... .... 8 1.1 Introduction ...... ..... ..... ............................................................................................... 8 1.2 Purpose and potential contributions ........................................................................ 12 1.3 Organization of the report .................... ...... .... ............ .. ......... .... .. ............................ 14 CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND ......... ... ............................................ ............................... 16 2. l Internet Technologies and Protocols ....... ............ ..... ...... .... .. ..... ............... ............ ... 16 2.2 Mobile Technologies and Protocols ........................................................................ 19 2.3 Traditional Web client-server communication model .. .............. ............................ 22 2.4 Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) ............................................................ 25 2.5 Ajax Engine ............................. .......... .... .... ..... ................. ............... ................ ........ 32 2.6 Mobile environment ................................................................................................ 35 2.6.1 Mobile devices .......................... ............ ... ................................................... .... . 35 2.6.2 Mobile technology ................................... .. ........ ..... ...... ........... ... ... .... .......... .... 37 2.6.3 Mobile Web browser ......... .... ........................................................................... 39 2.7 Alternative approaches to Ajax ...... ......... ..................... ............. .... .... ........ ....... ....... 44 2.7.1 Java/XML approach ..................................................... .......................... ... ....... 44 2.7.2 Macromedia's Flash and ActionScript approach ... ..... .................... ... ........ ... ... 45 CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW ............ .. .... ........................................................ 46 3 .1 Mobile learning .... .. ................................................. ..................... ...... ..................... 46 3.2 Ajax Implementation .............. ... .. ............... .... ........ ... .. ... ............................. ........... 49 3.3 Ajax performance on the desktop .. .......... .. ............................................................. 51 3.4 WWW performance over GPRS network ....... ... ........... ..... ..................................... 53 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY ............. ....... ........ ... .. ......... ...... ......................... ......... .. 55 4.1 What is the design research method? ........................... ........... ......... .................... ... 55 Page 5 of128 Assessing the Benefits of AJAX in Mobile Leaming Systems Design 4.2 Why use the design research method? ... ....... ... ......... ....... ......... ... ........... .......... ...... 56 4 3 A l d . h h d . h. h . pp y es1gn researc met o process m t 1s researc .......... .. .......... .................... 5 8 4.4 User evaluation design ......................... ........ ...... .. .... ...... .......... ...... .. ... ................. ... 62 4.4. l Within-subject design ..... .. .... .... .................. ....... ..... ............ .... .... ..................... 62 4.4.2 Observational Techniques .... ..... ..... .. ....... ........ ........ .. ...... .. .... ..... ...................... 63 CHAPTER 5: IMPLEMENTATION ................ ..... ... .... ......... ... ............ .. ...... .. ........ ..... .... 66 5. l The Mobile learning application ........ ... .......... ... .... .... ................ ... ............ .. ... ...... ... 67 5.1.1 ASP mobile learning system ..... ................ .. ............................................... .... .. 68 5.1.2 The Ajax mobile learning system .......... ......... ... ... .. ... ........ .. ... .. .... .. ........... .. .... 69 5.1.3 Using the mobile learning system .................... .. ......... .. .... ... ..... .... .. ....... .......... 77 5.2 Theoretical performance ....... ... ..... ... .. ............. ............ .. .. ....... ... ...... .. .... ...... .... .. ...... 79 5.2.1 Theoretical ASP system performance .............. .................... .............. ........ ..... . 79 5.2.2 Theoretical Ajax system performance ........... .. ... ...... ....................................... 81 5.3 Real-life performance (Vodafone New Zealand GPRS) ...................... ................ .. 84 5.3. l Vodafone New Zealand GPRS network ........ .... ......... ..... ..................... ..... .... .. 84 5.3.2 Real-life performance - Response Size ..... ........ .. ... ..... ... ...... ......................... 87 5.3.3 Real-life performance- Response time ........ ..... .......... ..... ........... ...... ............ 90 5.3.4 Real-life performance - Query size ....................... .. .. ...... ......... ..................... 92 5.4 Usability evaluation .......... ......... ...... ............. .... .... ....... ... .. .. .......... .......................... 96 5.4.1 Usability test overview ................. ...................... ..... .. ... ... .. ... .. ............ ....... .... .. 96 5.4.2 Usability test ... ... .... .. ........ .............. ............. .. .. .. .. .. ... .... ... .......... .. .... .... ............. 97 CHAPTER 6: Results and discussion ........... ..... ........... ... ....... ................. .... .... ...... .. ....... 100 6.1 Data analysis .. .. ........ ........... ............... ...... ......... ..... .. ... .... ................ .... .................. 100 6.2 Usability test results .. ... .... .... ................ ........ .... .. .... .... .. ...................... .. ...... ... ........ 102 CHAPTER 7: Conclusion .. .................... ................. ... ... ... .... ....... .............. .... ......... ... .... .. 105 7.1 Summary conclusion .... ........... ...... ...... .......................... ............... ...... ... ........ ....... . 105 7 .2 Recommendations ........... ... ....... ......... ... ...... .......... ................. ......... .. .. ..... ...... .. ..... 106 7.3 Limitations of the study ............................................... ....... ................. .... ..... ........ 106 7.4 Suggestions for future research .. .............. ........ ........... .... ............. ........... .. ..... ....... 107 References ......... .... ........... ..... .... ..................... ... ... ..... .... ... ............. .. .. ......... .... ............ ..... 108 Appendix 1 - Bibliography ............................................................... ...... ..... ........ ......... 118 Page 6 of128 Assessing the Benefits of AJAX in Mobile Learning Systems Design Appendix 2-Glossary of Term & Acronyms ........... .... .... ........... ....... ............. .... .. ...... 120 Appendix 3 - Usability Testing (Invitation Letter) .. .... ............... ... ..... ......................... 122 Appendix 4 - Usability Testing (Checklist) ........ .... ............................. .... .. ... ... .... ... .... . 123 Appendix 5 - Usability Testing (Questions) ........ .. ............ .. .... .. .............. ... ..... .. ........ .. 124 Appendix 6 - Participants Profile .... ..... .. ........... .................. .... ..... ... .. ... ... ..... ...... .......... 126 Appendix 7 -All Multi-Choice Questions ... ...... .. ... ....... ............ .. ... .. ... ... ....... ... ........ .. . 128 Page 7 of 128