What Makes A Rich Internet Application (RIA)?
Disclaimer: This blog post may seem a little outdated, after all the term RIA seems to be slowly dropping out of the hype-o-sphere and been replaced with the “cloud”, however, rich internet applications are still the cutting edge of many an enterprise implementation, hence this blog post.
The internet is changing, connections are getting faster, web browsers are getting more advanced and the technologies behind the internet are being constantly improved & updated. Due to this rapid evolution more and more companies are offering services that run on the cloud, accessible anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
Virtually every application that an average use would expect to find on their desktop computer can now be found somewhere on the internet. These are the rich internet applications, applications that finally break free of the desktop into the word of infinite storage and always on availability. This blog post aims to discuss the factors that are required (in my opinion) to produce a rich internet application.
Definition
According to David Mendels (one of the group that coined the phrase ‘rich internet application’ at Macromedia) the most basic definition of an RIA is ‘no page refresh’ (or ‘single screen’ depending on your interpretation). But he himself admits that this was the definition ‘at the time’. [Based on a comment by David at RedMonk].
In the current web-sphere many websites appear to classify themselves as RIAs, this probably due, in part, to the rise of the term ‘rich internet application’ as a buzz-phrase among developers and technology publications. Many technologists involved with RIAs now argue that any website that requires some form of browser-based plugin can be categorised as a RIA, but in the a world of desktop-replacement web applications does the term still apply to websites that simply include a flash video or make extensive use of AJAX to prevent page reloading?
Redefining RIAs
After trawling through many of the different websites that consider themselves rich internet applications I fully agree with the original definition that an RIA must have no (or very little) page refresh, this is one of the factors that makes an RIA more like a desktop application in terms of user experience, you wouldn’t expect the application window in Excel to completely re-draw itself every time you switch work books would you, so why put up with it in web applications that you use.
Every website I came across that I would consider to be an RIA also shared another common attribute, the lack of full page scroll bars. Many of them contained scroll bars to navigate through subsections of content but none ever forced me to trawl through large pages and lose access to key navigational features. Again, this is reminiscent of most, if not all, desktop applications. A desktop application will nearly always retain placement of navigational features the most obvious of these being the menu bar at the top of a window (or screen).
The use of browser plugins and ‘rich media’ however were not present in the RIAs that I came across. Many created a more than optimal user experience through the use of JavaScript, HTML and a few images, features available in all modern web-browsers.
Personally I believe that the only websites that should be considered ‘rich internet applications’, the key word being ‘applications’ are those that most effectively simulate the desktop application user experience; this does not however mean that RIAs should only be limited to the functionality that a desktop application can provide. The World Wide Web offers far greater scope in terms of storage, processing, scalability, accessibility and social interaction, features which should be embraced in the creation of rich internet applications and can only serve to augment the user experience.
Conclusion
In this blog post I have discussed in very simplistic terms, what, in my opinion, makes a RIA. It isn’t the inclusion of media heavy content, or the ability to load content without re-loading the whole page. It is the ability of a website to simulate a desktop user experience, effectively allowing the user to easily replace any desktop application with a browser-based clone.
In the context of modern rich internet applications the browser should be seen, not as a way of ‘browsing the internet’, but as a shell that provides a user with access to the applications which they use every day. The web browser is the operating system of the RIA world.
Check back soon.
