Developing a Mobile System for Natural Language Grammar Acquisition

The architectural and user interface patterns of mobile applications are well established for most popular software types. However, it is still challenging to design a mobile application for a use scenario beyond typical daily tasks. In this paper, we describe the challenges and design decision of mobile WordBricks software -- a virtual lab-like environment for natural language grammar acquisition. The flexibility of natural language grammar and complexity of visual representation of syntactical word relationships as well as specific pedagogical requirements required flexible system design decisions. We base the system on a combination of dynamic GUI elements creation and XML description of graphical scene contents. The system was successfully tested in a real classroom environment, and proved demonstrated high flexibility and maintainability.