ICSE 2025
Sat 26 April - Sun 4 May 2025 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Fri 2 May 2025 16:00 - 16:15 at 207 - Mobile Software Chair(s): Mattia Fazzini

Android applications are pervasively adopted and heavily relied on in our daily life, leading to the growing demand for enhanced user experiences, such as ease for operation and robustness. Nevertheless, developers continue to prioritize traditional functionality and performance, overlooking the pivotal role of user experience in real-world scenarios. For example, poorly designed page elements can lead to user confusion, resulting in unexpected outcomes, termed as the error-prone operation anomalies (EPAs). In this work, we undertake the first effort to uncover the underlying essence of the EPA problem. To achieve this objective, we investigated the root causes of EPAs from three dimensions, i.e., subject, object and environment. These causes were identified by multi-stage attribute capturing and precise similarity computation. In this process, the causes are categorized into fine-grained classes, namely confusing behaviours, unsuitable layout, and resource overload. Building upon these insights, we propose a dynamic GUI-based testing tool EP-Detector to facilitate detecting the EPAs in real-world apps. The EP-Detector is equipped with widget-exploration based target navigation and automatic test oracle, enabling it to detect error-prone page elements and simulate events with both comprehensiveness and precision. To systematically study the prevalence and severity of real-world EPAs, we conducted experiments on 53 popular Android apps with EP-Detector. The confirmed results not only validate the high precision and completeness of EP-Detector but also highlight that EPAs are prevalent in current apps, with at least one EPA existing in every two page widgets on average, and 28.3% of them may lead to security and functionality issues or risks. The EP-Detector is available at https://github.com/WordDealer/EP-Detector.

Fri 2 May

Displayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change

16:00 - 17:30
Mobile SoftwareResearch Track at 207
Chair(s): Mattia Fazzini University of Minnesota
16:00
15m
Talk
EP-Detector: Automatic Detection of Error-prone Operation Anomalies in Android ApplicationsSecurity
Research Track
Chenkai Guo Nankai University, China, Qianlu Wang College of Cyber Science, Nankai University, Naipeng Dong The University of Queensland, Australia, Lingling Fan Nankai University, Tianhong Wang College of Computer Science, Nankai University, Weijie Zhang College of Computer Science, Nankai University, EnBao Chen College of Cyber Science, Nankai University, Zheli Liu Nankai University, Lu Yu National University of Defense Technology; Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cyberspace Security Situation Awareness and Evaluation
16:15
15m
Talk
Mobile Application Coverage: The 30% Curse and Ways ForwardArtifact-Available
Research Track
Faridah Akinotcho University of British Columbia, Lili Wei McGill University, Julia Rubin The University of British Columbia
16:30
15m
Talk
The Design Smells Breaking the Boundary between Android Variants and AOSP
Research Track
Wuxia Jin Xi'an Jiaotong University, Jiaowei Shang Xi'an Jiaotong University, Jianguo Zheng Xi'an Jiaotong University, Mengjie Sun Xi’an Jiaotong University, Zhenyu Huang Honor Device Co., Ltd., Ming Fan Xi'an Jiaotong University, Ting Liu Xi'an Jiaotong University
16:45
15m
Talk
Scenario-Driven and Context-Aware Automated Accessibility Testing for Android Apps
Research Track
Yuxin Zhang Tianjin University, Sen Chen Nankai University, Xiaofei Xie Singapore Management University, Zibo Liu College of Intelligence and Computing, Tianjin University, Lingling Fan Nankai University
17:00
15m
Talk
TacDroid: Detection of Illicit Apps through Hybrid Analysis of UI-based Transition Graphs
Research Track
Yanchen Lu Zhejiang University, Hongyu Lin Zhejiang University, Zehua He Zhejiang University, Haitao Xu Zhejiang University, Zhao Li Hangzhou Yugu Technology, Shuai Hao Old Dominion University, Liu Wang Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Haoyu Wang Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Kui Ren Zhejiang University
17:15
15m
Talk
PacDroid: A Pointer-Analysis-Centric Framework for Security Vulnerabilities in Android AppsSecurityArtifact-FunctionalArtifact-AvailableArtifact-ReusableAward Winner Best Artifact
Research Track
Menglong Chen Nanjing University, Tian Tan Nanjing University, Minxue Pan Nanjing University, Yue Li Nanjing University
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