[Sigia-l] The IA in RIAs

[Welie, Martijn van]

>From: Stew Dean [mailto:stew at stewdean.com] 
>Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] The IA in RIAs
>
>The area of rich Internet applications is not that new to those who have 
>worked on function rich applications - it just allows us more freedom in 
>terms of what we can do for the front end.  It's best not to over 
>complicate things - apparent simplicity is the key.

Indeed, RIA is mainly a new term for something that already existed a long
time.
It is just that Macromedia found a new angle to pitch Flash. The main issues
is that using Flash we can largely get rid of page transitions where they
are not necessary from the user point of view. It feels more natural and
allows users to work on an area of the page without reloads.

>
>All interfaces either use space or time to communicate ideas (techincal 
>term is space multiplexing or time multiplexing). In the case of web we've 
>been focused on space with time relating to pages.

First we had the GUI applications that didn't use any page-based interaction
but rather a screen-based (real-time) interaction. With the arrival of the
web we had to convine ourselves to mapping interaction on pages and hence
the inevitable page transitions. Using Flash we can get back to the GUI
situation where the users can control a particular large widget (say a
booking reservation) which automatically updates/refreshes its content
(using Flash's XML/remoting capabilities) without a single browser page
refresh. So basically, we are back where we started....

In my opinion there is no need for new methods and techniques. We are now
simply relieved of the necessaties of page transitions in web sites.
Wireframes can still be used and so can all other tools of our (UX) trade.

For me RIA (or whatever you called it...I don't care) is exciting because it
allows me to create more fluent interactions on the web. But generally
speaking it is nothing new...

Martijn