[Sigia-l] The IA in RIAs

[Peter J. Bogaards]

Hi,

As a disclaimer, I would like to state that I have no direct experience 
with RIA design or implementation and therefore are unaware of the 
various idiosyncracies and constraints of current RIA technologies. I 
rather focus on conceptual, design related issues.

Stew stated that "... all the user experience skills are 
interchangeable between these an the web." I would say OK, but where to 
find resources on the design aspects of this 'new' platform. Most 
resources are related to GUI/web apps. and sites. The underlying 
perception of these resources are (still) dialog or page-related 
conversations.

Some suggested to ditch the term 'RIA' completely. Because it is so 
closely related to the marketese of Macromedia and its technologies, I 
agree. But do we need an alternative and if so, is there any? In the 
conversation, I noticed that many see RIAs as an (specific type of) 
Flash implementation. So far, I tried to extend the RIA concept by NOT 
having it directly relate to a proprietary presentation technology. 
Even how vastly distributed the Flash engine is.

The topic I like to address is the significant difference between a RIA 
and a non-RIA web implementation from a design perspective. What are 
the unique characteristics of a RIA which can drive the design? Are the 
differences only technological (much less server interaction, I/O 
location, data storage and manipulation) or are there other, more 
relevant differences for UX people? Even the development chart of 
platform types from Macromedia as mentioned by Dave focusses mainly on 
the feature set of evolving technologies. That's fine, but I do not 
think that will help us in the long run.

I agree somewhat with those stating that 'there is nothing new'. 
However, I also like to think that RIAs are not just a retrofit of GUI 
applications (of whatever type). The proliferation of connected people 
and devices (now and in the near future) and the (almost) open 
standards upon which RIAs can be based add an additional layer of 
complexity and design challenges. How does this layer influence our 
thinking as designers?

Martijn suggested that in essence we are back where we started. As 
stated above,  I would question that. Designing GUI apps gave us 
standards, guidelines, and widgets from platform vendors to compose a 
flow of dialogs 'to get things done'. In analogy, I do not see any kind 
recommendations from anybody emerging for RIAs as a specific category 
of web applications.

Let me also clarify the point of using current UX methods with RIAs or 
not. It is not my intention to throw away what we have, but I wonder if 
our current conceptual framework of UX, IA, or other related 
disciplines will support us adequately to design compelling user 
experiences for RIAs.

All the (new) features mentioned by Martijn (nice list Martijn!) are 
not necessarily the monopoly of Flash. Alternatives for Flash RIAs are 
emerging and that is a good thing. As with any technology, the 
technology in itself is not important, but what you (can) do with it 
and how to apply it in a useful manner.

My wish for a 'compelling roadmap' came from the notion that, like all 
digital design disciplines, information architecture has been strongly 
influenced by the technology evolution of the last decade or more. I 
see various kinds of technology developments now emerging (of which RIA 
is one) and I'm wondering how these will influence the IA and other 
disciplines.

All in all, my main issue is not so much as to know what a RIA is, but 
to converse about the issue of 'updating' our UX concepts, theories, 
methods, techniques and tools for the RIA design space (independent of 
specific technologies).

Hope it helps.

Kind regards

~pjb

Peter J. Bogaards
(m) +31(0) 622 557 486
'Sharing knowledge is better than having it.'