Reading the Technology Tea Leaves: Is a Rich Internet Application in Your Future?
BayCHI's Rashmi Sinha Leads Panelists from Laszlo Systems, Macromedia, Classic Systems Solutions, and Oddpost

Meeting report by Erin Rosenthal
Edited by Linda Logemann

BayCHI's Rashmi Sinha introduced the topic and explained how she selected the panelists. Next, four of the five panelists discussed their companies and their work.

Rashmi selected the panelists after reading a panelist's article and finding it relevant to the discussion. All panelists have a background in both technology and design.

Rashmi presented a brief background on Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). She found that the navigation metaphor does not always apply. The metaphor that does apply is sliding windows, so you don't have to go anywhere for information; the information is already present and must only be revealed.

Discussion topics:

• What are RIAs?
• What are the considerations in selecting a platform?
• What are the user experience design patterns?
• What is the ROI for RIA systems?
• Should an RIA be more like the desktop experience or more like the web experience?

Jim Hobart, Classic Systems Solutions

Will RIAs Enable or Disable us?

In Jim's work, he found the need to handle more complexity and high task frequency. He feels this is the sweet spot for RIAs. Specifically:

• Data visualization.
• Mobile and occasionally connected computers (OCC).
• Trading systems.
• CRM, ERP, and HCM.

RIAs immerse users in their environment and get out of the click-wait or the "I am confused" metaphor.

Jim presented three RIA usability tests:

• Searching to buy a camera.
• Contact management software.
• Selecting an interior house paint color.

The camera test results proved the need to get back to basics, understand the task workflow, and choose the right metaphor. In the test application, sliders were difficult to use, and the initial display of all the cameras in an array proved overwhelming.

The contact management test proved the need for consistency. One user found it familiar: "It looks like Outlook."

The users were most immersed in the Sherwin Williams paint application, but there was no way to buy the paint! In conclusion, whether RIAs enable or disable us depends on usability.

Mike Sundermeyer, Macromedia Experience Matters

When the web came around, we took a step backwards, and the experience generally got worse, not better. The web has a low level of interactivity: point and click. Other client applications have a higher interactivity: drag and drop. Now, with RIAs, we have the opportunity to improve interactivity and the user experience.

Why does experience matter?

• On-line relationships are replacing personal relationships.
• Switching costs are so low that good experience is required to retain customers.
• Experience can improve ROI.

What are RIAs good for?

• Multi-step processes.
• Expressing complex relationships visually.
• User controlled data: searching, filtering, and sorting.
• User customization.
• Persistence and off-line access.
• Emotional appeal and branding.

Mike feels there is no perfect RIA out there, and there is always room for improvement. He is looking for patterns that solve the issues RIAs present. Mike demonstrated the web sites of TJ Max and Pottery Barn and a Morgan Stanley trading system.

David Temkin, Laszlo Systems

What is an RIA?

Laszlo defines RIA in three ways:

• A new way to distribute applications using a browser rather than having to install an application.
• A new development model.
• Not a single user experience.

The Laszlo Presentation Server platform enables advanced user experience. The platform uses XML to encourage a sophisticated style of development and collaboration between designers and developers. It is oriented to software developers who really want to get the UI right.

One of the major issues with getting RIAs out there has to do with skill set. Designers are accustomed to page-based development, and serious developers work only on server-side development. "We need to get out of that mode."

RIAs restore functionality we lost when we moved to the web, such as direct manipulation, windowing, keyboard control, double click, and menus. Laszlo is very interested in the occasional use of applications. "We are in a different world now, and it is not just about task completion."

David demonstrated many applications developed with Laszlo's platform, including the Earthlink personal start page, Kodak mobile photo sharing, a calendar, a zooming interface for viewing nested content, and Laszlo's web mail application.

There is a performance advantage. The initial download is large, but subsequent downloads are small. Only pure data, not the logic or layout, is retrieved with each click. A renaissance in client-side developers is needed for RIAs to move forward. "Ask not what the web can do for you. Ask what you can do for the web."

Ethan Diamond, Oddpost

Ethan founded Oddpost with Ian Lamb four years ago, and Oddpost was just bought by Yahoo!. Oddpost was founded on the idea that most applications will live on the web, and the killer application is email. The Oddpost application is 160KB of DHTML. There are no ActiveX controls and no Java. The application looks and performs like Microsoft Outlook.

The advantages of web-delivered applications are:

• Users always have the latest version.
• Users don't have to worry about backups.
• Users can access data from any machine anywhere in the world.

Ethan did a live demonstration of many features that showed desktop features in the DHTML application, including email, RSS aggregation, and blogging. He also demonstrated Oddpost running in Mozilla, although for the present, Oddpost is offered only for Internet Explorer under Windows.

Q&A

Q: How does security limit RIAs?

Ian: We stand on the shoulders of the browser. One issue: When is it appropriate to store information on the user's computer?

Mike: I hate security. I can never, ever solve it completely. The best way is to put the logic on the server. Flash uses the sandbox model.

Comments on Rich User Testing

Ethan: Thousands of users interact with these applications. Do you dynamically evolve the application from the behavior of a large number of users?

David: The data collection is not the issue. The issue is the ease with which applications can be modified.

Mike: The best model is what Amazon does (numerous A/B tests).

Ian: The feedback of the web is rapid, and we can implement what the users want.

Original Announcement

Let's admit that the HTML page-centric model does not scale to full-fledged web applications. This panel will consider what lies beyond HTML, venturing into the new, exciting world of Rich Internet Applications, or RIAs.

The discussion will focus on techology platforms for creating RIAs and what advantages (if any) RIAs offer users.

• What are RIAs?
• What are the technology platforms for building such applications?
• What is the benefit for user experience?
• What are the design challenges?
• What usability problems arise when people accustomed to a page-centric model use such systems?
• Is there a business need for RIAs?
• What is the return on investment for such systems?

Our panelists have spearheaded the move towards RIAs. Each will provide us with a perspective on RIAs. an open discussion will follow. By the end of the evening, you'll know what RIAs are and whether you should be considering an RIA for your next web application.

Mike Sundermeyer is senior V.P. of product design at Macromedia. Growing up surfing in Santa Cruz gave him a love of the experience. Growing up with traffic lights that deliver two-minute reds at 3 a.m. has made him indignant about bad design. At Macromedia, he used applied indignation as the lead UI designer for Dreamweaver and contributed to the conception and design of Flex, Contribute, Breeze, and other products. Prior to Macromedia, Mike led various design and development projects at Gain technology, a multimedia startup, and Sun Microsystems. Surprisingly he actually has a degree, a B.S. in EE/CS from UC Davis. Read Mike's article on the Flex experience model.

David Temkin is co-founder and chief technology officer of Laszlo Systems. At Laszlo, he led the development of Laszlo Presentation Server, a rich internet application (RIA) platform now in its second major release. He has fifteen years' industry experience focused on UI development, design, and platform technology. Temkin believes in "no compromise" user experience—one that's as engaging as television and as easy to use as a light switch.

Before founding Laszlo in 2000, Temkin led the development of consumer software for PCs and TV set-top boxes at Excite@Home. Prior to that, he spent five years (!) working on Apple's Newton. In the late '80s, he worked on Intermedia, a pre-web networked hypertext system. Temkin holds degrees in computer science and history from Brown University. He maintains a blog.

Jim Hobart is president of Classic Systems Solutions, an internationally-recognized user interface design consultancy. He specializes in the design and development of large-scale, high-volume client/server applications. He is an expert in GUI design for transaction processing systems and strategies for migrating from character-based systems.

Ethan Diamond is co-founder and president of Oddpost, a web-based email service recently acquired by Yahoo!. Before starting Oddpost, Diamond worked as an engineer at Halfbrain, where he helped build the first web-based spreadsheet application, and as an interface designer and product manager at Adobe Systems. He is a graduate of Stanford University. Read an interview with Diamond on Oddpost's design

Iain Lamb is co-founder and chief technology officer of Oddpost. A graduate of Stanford's Symbolic Systems program, he studied human computer interaction under the tutelage of Terry Winograd. His mind-opening experiences as a multimedia developer and application programmer in the mid-nineties inspired him to pursue similar rich, flexible interfaces in web application design. He has taught at San Francisco State's Multimedia Studies Program and written code for Halfbrain, Adobe Systems, Yahoo!, The Residents, and a Japanese shampoo company.

See Oddpost's pictorial record of their heartwarming rise to glory .

Rashmi Sinha, who will chair the panel, is a BayCHI program chair and principal of Uzanto Consulting, specializing in design-oriented customer research and interaction design. Her recent projects have involved the design and analysis of Rich Internet Applications. You can read her blog at www.rashmisinha.com