Searching Mobile App Screens via Text + Doodle (2305.06165v2)

Abstract: Locating a specific mobile application screen from existing repositories is restricted to basic keyword searches, such as Google Image Search, or necessitates a complete query screen image, as in the case of Swire. However, interactive partial sketch-based solutions like PSDoodle have limitations, including inaccuracy and an inability to consider text appearing on the screen. A potentially effective solution involves implementing a system that provides interactive partial sketching functionality for efficiently structuring user interface elements. Additionally, the system should incorporate text queries to enhance its capabilities further. Our approach, TpD, represents the pioneering effort to enable an iterative search of screens by combining interactive sketching and keyword search techniques. TpD is built on a combination of the Rico repository of approximately 58k Android app screens and the PSDoodle. Our evaluation with third-party software developers showed that PSDoodle provided higher top-10 screen retrieval accuracy than state-of-the-art Swire and required less time to complete a query than other interactive solutions.