[Sigia-l] The IA in RIAs

[Dave]

Martijn,

I think you get it, I think its just not a big deal for you b/c of the
direction you are coming from.

For people who have been doing predominantly information consumption
(traditional IA work) as opposed to high transaction or applications
there is something new for them to be thinking about.

The limitations of traditional x-browser HTML has been severely
internalized to an almost oppressive level on most IAs. Now we as a
group get to think more richly about the total possibility of
solutions.

I would caution suggesting that Java is an RIA environment. The reason
I would caution that is b/c to me Java is not as easily distributable
as both Flash or HTML and the runtime engine for Java is not as
ubiquitous as that of Flash or HTML.

In the end, the huge advantage of a HTML still remains that it is so
easily distributed with the minimum # of barriers. Flash is probably
2nd after that.

In your list of features (which I would not call a "definition of
RIA") you forgot the one that I was referencing. You got close w/ this
one ...
"You can easily get information-updates from databases using XML or Flash
remoting."

The addition to this is what you can do with it afterwards. HTML can
get information updates as well. What HTML can't do is then hold the
total set in a client resident database that can then be accessed,
manipulated, and updated with a broader set of intelligences that in
HTML requires yet another get from the server. This has two positive
effects. The user effect of speed but the other effect of limiting
bandwidth and CPU use.

So an example to think about that sorta made this a bit more clear to
me is this app.
http://www.fordvehicles.com/towing/popup.asp?type=TRUCK&uid=

what I see here is an example of using the richness of Flash to find
new information displays and new interacive methods for increasing
findability. I do think they aren't quite getting the full benefit of
it, but they are doing more.

Another example is the classic Broadmore Hotel example where Form and
View are on the same screen which increases efficiency.

Anyway, I hope this makes the point clearer.

-- dave