User Experience Comparison of Progressive Web Apps and Native Mobile Applications: A Mixed-methods Approach

Abstract

Mobile applications play a vital role in communication, business, and learning processes, and hence the approach to mobile application development is a key factor that needs to be chosen with great care. There are mainly two approaches to mobile application development: native applications developed using platform-specific programming languages like Swift and Kotlin for Android and iOS, respectively, and Progressive Web Applications that leverage web technologies with native features. Native applications provide a high level of integration with the underlying mobile platform and hence provide access to hardware features, smooth animation effects, and offline access at the cost of increased development and maintenance complexity. On the contrary, Progressive Web Applications provide a single codebase for the application, can be installed from the browser, and provide offline access with service worker technology at the cost of reduced complexity and increased reach. This study compares Progressive Web Applications and native applications with respect to five user experience factors like speed, navigation, offline access, storage space, and overall satisfaction using a mixed-methodology approach that includes quantitative and qualitative approaches. Qualitative approach data has been collected from survey of 100 participants and Random Forest algorithm is implemented for the prediction of user retention and experience while also identifying the most important feature for user satisfaction. The algorithm provides the best results with an accuracy of 80%. Additionally, a prototype Progressive Web Application and a native mobile application were developed and evaluated using Google Lighthouse to analyse performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO metrics, providing technical insights to support the comparative analysis.