[Sigia-l] The IA in RIAs

[Dave]

>From a software design perspective I agree that there is nothing new here.

>From an information architecture (little IA) I disagree. RIAs open up
significant new doors for findability that as RIA implementations
become more commonplace we will be able to experiment with more and
more. Right now if you just think of it as less "page transitions" I
think you are missing the point. The term "Rich" in RIAs is very apt
b/c there are just more possibilities for interaction and thus a
possible richer experience.

While a lot of this intra-client experience can be done with DHTML the
ability to store large sets of data on the client-side to me is the
real big shift b/c I can manipulate it, do minor appending to it, and
display it in many visualizations without ever returning to the server
again. This all allows for more variations than we would have normally
considered in standard information consumption solutions than before.

So while I agree that in the broadest sense there is "nothing new
here", I do think that taking that approach doesn't allow us to
explore the specifics of what is very new here for IAs to be thinking
about.

-- dave


On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 14:02:30 +0100, Welie, Martijn van
<martijn.van.welie at satama.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> >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
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-- 
David Heller
E: dheller (at) gmail (dot) com
W: www (dot) synapticburn (dot) com