[Sigia-l] web applications - to integrate or not?

[Dan Saffer]

I'm tempted to give the facetious "It Depends" answer here, but won't.
:)

The sites I work on (ameritrade.com, datek.com) are all combinations of
content, integrated (as in contained in HTML/XML/XSL) applications, and
stand alone applications (Java, Flash), all of them held together by a
website framework that (of course) includes navigation. This is not to
say that the navigation persists in the stand-alone applications (it
doesn't), but that you can access all of these items from one set of
global navigation.

Our rule of thumb has been: if it can be integrated into the website, it
should be, and include the site navigation and look and feel. But, if we
think that users many want to use the application independent of (or
instead of) the website, then it opens in a separate window. There's
also some practical reasons for having an application outside of the
site framework: you typically get more screen space, for one thing.

We do try to have all our stand-alone applications to have a similar
look and feel, so that the learning curve between applications is
lessened (to a degree). The look and feel of the applications
unfortunately doesn't reflect the current look and feel of the sites,
although IMHO, they should.

Hope this helps...

Dan

dan saffer
sr. interaction designer, ameritrade
http://www.odannyboy.com

"there's a lot of things 
 if I could I'd rearrange." -U2