[Sigia-l] SOA and UX

[Listera]

Joe Sokohl:

> how a services-oriented enterprise architecture (SOA) can benefit users.

One of the fundamental aspects of SOA is the reliance on XML to shuttle data
to/from/among data/app servers and the browser. A well-crafted UI,
especially one that relies on XMLHTTPRequest, should be data-source
agnostic. As long as the XML conforms to the API, the app should be able to
consume the data regardless of its origin. So in that sense, from a UI/UX
POV, SOA is orthogonal.

What makes SOA interesting for UX is the newly found ability of the web
browser to now act as an aggregator of disparate data all over the place
hopefully neatly brought together on one page/portal. Instead of having 10
distinct apps all dedicated to their respective data sources, you now have
perhaps one app that can aggregate all 10 sources into a seamless UX. The
load on all those 10 servers is also now less, since they probably answer
partial/smaller/more focused queries, instead of driving wholesale apps.

I just used enough jargon to feel sticky for a week, but SOA means a lot of
different things to a lot of different people.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.