Mobile Applications vs. Chat-based Applications : A Comparative Study based on Academic Library Domain

Mobile applications and chat-based applications (aka. chatbots) have become the main channel for organizations/companies to provide transactions, operations and services to their users via online platform. Understanding the trade-off between these two types of applications can help organizations to better plan their resources and choose the most appropriate technology/platform to serve their users. This research, therefore, presents a comparative study between the two types of applications and proposes important comparative metrics, comprising the development cost and time metrics and the usability metrics. The study uses an academic library domain as a case study. First, the application requirements were collected and analyzed. The system development was then carried out for both a mobile application and a chatbot. The corresponding development cost and time metrics as well as the usability metrics were investigated and compared.