[Sigia-l] RIA: the wrong tree?

[Jonathan Baker-Bates]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org 
> [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of Ziya Oz
> Sent: 25 May 2007 10:18
> To: SIGIA-L
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] RIA: the wrong tree?
> 
> Jonathan Baker-Bates:
> 
> > Having used Basecamp for the past 9 months on a project, I hate 
> > everything those people do.
> 
> OK. I wasn't necessarily pointing to 37 signals as the 
> paragon of good UI design. My point was that their UIs are 
> generally subdued and not screaming Web 2.0 or RIA. (That 
> people seemed to like them is partially relevant
> here.)

Indeed. And I apologise for my outburst.

> 
> Are you saying then they are bad Designers, period? Or that 
> that if they availed themselves more of the Web 2.0 or RIA 
> goodness, they'd be better?

I'm really saying I'm too close to their products to make an objective
judgement on the matter. However, if I was to pretend I didn't want to
firebomb their offices, I would say that the best "collaborative project
management tool" I have used to date is Groove Virtual Office
(http://www.groove.net/). That happens to be a desktop application. When
I was using it 18 months ago, apart from the glaring omission of a
search function or any real integration between the components, it was
(for 8 months with 40 people in three countries) perfectly useable and
aided our production a great deal.

So, I think the answer to your question - in this particular case, but
probably with most UI that has a complex problem to solve - is yes.
Page-based, "web" interactions are fine up to a point, but there comes a
time when only an RIA is going to deliver.

Jonathan

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