I have absolutely no clue what the heck he's saying in his blog posts as I'm limited to a mutated version of English we Aussies prefer to call "slang" but that being said, it's great to see RIA as a concept being translated and discussed by the French in French.

Those crazy french, what will they think of next.

Love your work Christophe!

P.S

The title translates to:
Microsoft met le I dans Rich International Applications. Allez RIA France!

More Info: http://www.riactu.fr

When I first started the RIA Evangelism role in Microsoft, I had this nagging feeling that the term RIA was just all over the place. Depending on which technology you are backing and which stream of alliance you uphold, the truth is the term was destined to be abused before it really took off.

I even tried to provoke conversation around it, by waving a big red flag and saying "Microsoft is about to use Rich Interactive not Rich Internet Application, debate me on it". Oh they debated me on it and lots of it, as the end conclusion was simply folks didn't care what the definition was, so long as we all understood Macromedia owned it in 2002. Such logic baffles me to this day.

I started to see some Adobe Staffers in many respects abuse the very term they acquired, by mixing the pool with Rich Branded Experiences against RIA, and if it had Flash - well it was RIA. I challenged many of them on that, and the result ended in personal character warfare.

After all these blog battles, arguments, debates and so on,  the term is becoming lost in the struggle over which technology is better than the other. The true essence of what I thought RIA stood for has now become a buzz word, much like the "Web 2.0" or "Social Networking". That's sad, not because I am attached to the term, but simply because it's a much easier way for customers to frame the conversation with other customers, and not have to spend time educating them.

Ryan Stewart, has recently tried his best to define the term RIA, but has failed. It's not that Ryan doesn't get it, but simply - who is he to define the term? (In that it's not about Ryan, but who is he to define it? debate that first and then follow up with a merit debate on the semantics of the term).

Some folks loyal to the Adobe cause will support him, others whom aren't will argue the point with him (have already). In the end, the term is now up for debate, with no single winner or owner but simply open for mob rule.

The team with the biggest horde will own the definition - for a while, that is until someone or something with large amount of credibility and marketing power will change the landscape once again.

Can you sit here and honestly blame Microsoft in many respects for leaning more towards the term Rich Client Platform vs RIA, sure it doesn't start the conversation with the right framing - as most regard RIA has holy and all that is good ( DO NOT TOUCH stickers are ready to put around it's term). Yet, Rich Client Platform is simply a way for us internally to define what it is we are setting out to do. To build a Rich Client Platform.

Welcome to the Internet, where a terms definitions is as good as those who lobby for it inside wikipedia. Mob rules.

...But with 1900+ pixels, I keep half for the browser and half for other stuff. If you go with 1000+ pixels, it doesn't leave me with enough room for my other apps, and I've got to (ack!) scroll sideways. It's not as bad with the ball on the Mighty Mouse, but most people don't have one and it's not exactly effortless even with one... -  Sammy Larbi

It's an interesting point to debate, as whilst on one hand I do agree with him that the potential for your audience to overlay multiple smaller applications is there, yet at the same time the benefits of expanding your resolution to accommodate more on screen can also be in an asset.

Screen real estate is a hard subject to nail as even if you're the best information architect in the world, you will still annoy someone with your chosen path. The trick is to figure out you collateral damage, in that what percentage of your user base is going to disagree with your design.

The easiest way to work that out is to do some basic research, check the statistics of your existing site (assuming you had one already) then ask them but do so in a way that doesn't draw attention to your intent - as humans are funny at times, they do one thing but say another.

eg:

Q. Do you think Coke is good for your diet...
A. Yes, it's terrible...

The intent was it's terrible, bad, negative, stop!. Yet they will drink coke.

Here is a tip, we are habitual creatures and if you can compliment our patterns of habit, you're likely to become less annoying.

Take this blog for example. Below is a graph indicating my resolution stats for this blog.

Would it be a good idea for me to go back to 800x600 resolution? If not what would you consider my ideal resolution.

Know your audiences technology limitations, know your customers habits and above all plot your approaches into a Risk Matrix.

The answers to all of the above are simple. We are chasing perfection, we are demanding that something succeed and we are highly emotional at times about it. Perfection once achieved is no longer perfect as it should be a ongoing quest with no end.

I am the worst perfectionist going, I see some interesting technology in this role and I find myself praising it on one hand and then brushing it aside, demanding it be improved. I do this also with my own artwork, I seek to ensure I put the most amount of energy, creativity and adhere's to a specific focused theme - failure... recycle bin..

I have just realised I have 4gb of artwork over 10 years that I've kept but doesn't meet my "perfection grade" (thus never really show people). That being said I have approx 1gb of artwork that I have kept that does -  but needs improvement.

I've never settled on one I'd call perfect.

It doesn't stop with my art work but also with regards to interactive programming. The interfaces I'd design for RIA solutions would be great to look at but I'd find the transition sequences the most frustrating as I wanted to achieve a certain outcome and would not accept "it will do".

Perfection is both a curse and gift in one, thus why critics exist and will continue to exist. A critic in my mind is someone or something that has already decided in their minds what perfection is and pity those whom are about to go before them - as they have lost before they began.

Accept the notion we need to reach perfection, but never punish the journey to perfection and results  produced along the way.

This post was inspired by Ratatouille a movie my son and I enjoy watching over and over.

When you first type in http://labs.cynergysystems.com you are presented with a matrix style decision. On the left you have the red pill whilst on the right you have the blue pill. This one screen summarises Cynergy Systems really well, as it shows this is a true agnostic company willing to place bets on both sides.

In light of this, I decided it was high time I had a "sit down' with Dave Wolf, Cynergy's VP of Consulting.

Scott: Who are you, and what is it you do?

Dave: Cynergy is an RIA design and development firm.  We build RIA software solutions for software companies and lines of businesses worldwide.  We’re really one of the few companies around that built themselves from the ground up to design and build these kinds of software experiences.  We have not only user experience development, but also back-end enterprise services development and our own design agency so we can really offer a pretty holistic approach to folks.  Sometimes people look to us for just UX design, but often times customers outsource whole projects, so we end up being the entire software engineering team.

Scott: Cynergy are quite an agnostic company whom have perfected the art of using both Adobe and Microsoft technology, why?

Dave: We’ve always been focused on RIA development.  That has meant a lot of things over the years but really historically our biggest practice had been around the Adobe stack.  We’ve been talking about RIA and what actually became Silverlight for quite some time with Microsoft and when Silverlight 1.0 launched at MIX07 we were the first RIA firm to announce we were putting together a Silverlight practice ourselves.  Our passion really has been building RIAs and picking out the technologies we think solve the real challenges around building these kinds of apps  It has to be rich and engaging, have a really strong designer to developer workflow, and be a seriously productive development environment.  Silverlight gave us all of that, but more importantly Silverlight brings along the whole .NET community which meant this incredible pool of talent that understands not only the technology, but they understand building serious enterprise class software.  To us this is about solving customers problems, and doing that by tapping the right technology, rather than the one technology. 

Scott: You’ve started to make movements in the labs space for Cynergy Developers, why and what is your biggest hope around this space?

Dave: Cynergy Labs is really exciting for us.  One thing we’ve always felt really strong about here at Cynergy is that being a leader is about a lot more than just being big.  It’s about providing real leadership and investing back into the community.  RIAs have really created a world where if we can imagine it we can build it.  Where software doesn’t have to be the same grey background and button bar at the top and where the data grid isn’t the only way to see and understand data.  Frankly the only limit really is imagination and experience, and so we stepped back and said, “how can we foster imagination and build up real world experience?” and that brought Labs to life. A place where Cynergy folks can put forward ideas that we think provide a real contribution to our customers and the community at large, and we can provide both the place and the funding to make it happen.  We also know we have a huge amount of experience in the whole RIA project lifecycle and we decided rather than say carve out some percentage of everyone’s time towards research, lets create Labs in a way where we could take these amazing ideas and build them out just like we’d build out any projects, with dedicated teams using our LookFirst user-centric development process. 

Scott: Maestro is taking RIA to the device discussion. What motivated this?

 Dave: The device is the next step in this whole user-centric experience revolution.  The first steps were to focus on the presentation of the experience. In realizing that just because the data is stored in rows and columns doesn’t mean we have to present it to people in rows and columns.  We can create visualizations that present data and information to people in such a way they can really understand it immediately.  One powerful way to do that is to present information through broad strokes of reality.  To present information in a way we might see it and interact with it in our physical environment, where in a “blink” you can see and understand it.  But the next step is in how users interact with that data.  That’s where the hardware comes in.  The mouse’s addition to our interaction hardware revolutionized the PC by creating a more natural real world productive for users to interact with their software.  That is what brought about Project Maestro.  Can we now explore new hardware interaction devices that bring in these same broad strokes of reality we can combine with rich experiences. 

Scott: When I last spoke to you, you said

“..If you thought RIA was a fad, just look at the hardware guys.  Frankly they have proven to predict the future for generations.”

Could you expand on this?

Dave: There’s been a lot of pundits making noise that there is no need for RIAs and they are a fad.  We have everything we need in HTML, CSS and the browser.  I would counter that if you believe RIA is a fad, look around at the hardware guys who are right now building hardware meant to run RIAs.  Whether it is the Microsoft Surface on one extreme, or the iPod on the other, or things like the Compaq touch screen PC’s right in the middle of the ramp, the hardware vendors are building RIA devices.  Hardware is a harbinger of what’s going to stick because of the very high capital expenses around designing and deploying hardware especially compared to software.  So seeing all of this investment by the hardware vendors is a huge sign that not only do they believe RIAs are real, they’re heavily invested enough to make sure they stay that way.  This leads right into having Maestro be the first project made public out of labs.  We think the combination of RIA and Hardware is where things are going next.

Scott: I blogged recently about RIA on Devices, what’s your thoughts on should we evolve the concept onto a device or not?

Dave: As I was saying before, there are two sides to enterprise software.  There is displaying data and there is interacting with data.  WPF and Silverlight and other RIA technologies are providing us with the canvas to solve the first problem of how do we present data.  Although interactive design and development is a part of the data manipulation challenge, hardware is going to play a huge role moving forward.  Bringing these tailored RIA experiences together with tailed interactive hardware we think is going to be really exciting.  The question is what is the right form factor, and that’s what Project Maestro coming out of Labs was about.  Let’s invest into research into this exact question.

Scott: What’s the biggest stumbling block for RIA today?

Dave: It’s really two things.  People and Process.  The people challenge is both having enough people, and the right kinds of people.  RIA development can be  more complicated because it takes all kinds of roles.  It’s not just a developer for the front end, but a back-end services developer and a designer.  One of the reasons folks choose us is that we have all of those folks and can put a total development team together made up of all of the right people.  The challenge though is that when you have all of these people trying to work together, you need a really good process to keep them moving forward and working as a real team.  This is why you hear so much about the “developer to designer workflow.’   Tools like Expression and Blend help a ton by having been built to work within these workflows, but you have to have the process down and your people indoctrinated into it.  We’ve worked really hard for years to get our LookFirst process down and it’s incredible the difference it makes.  We’re knocking out these incredible apps in a fraction of the time it used to take us to develop even primitive web apps. 

Scott: What inspires your team to do stuff like Maestro or adopt WPF/Silverlight before it’s even released?

Dave: Passion!  Our people are so passionate about the whole RIA space.  A lot of this comes from seeing what’s possible with things like WPF and Silverlight.  Once you see what some of these apps can be like, it’s hard not to be excited. We’ve designed and developed over 60 RIAs and everyone feels more innovative then the last.  It makes you realize we’ve only scratched the surface of the kinds of visualizations and interactions we’re going to see, and that makes these Labs projects all the more exciting. 

Scott: What is Microsoft doing right in the RIA space? – feel free to elaborate on what we are doing wrong as well.

Dave: Microsoft is doing a lot right.  First off they really get the designer to developer workflow idea and have been working hard to get it folded into the stack in places like Expression and Blend.  Secondly they also really get that this needs to be about building a real community inside the vast .NET development community.  These projects take lots of people all interacting and collaborating.  That means building out communities and putting collaboration tools out there to make this all fundamentally easier. 

Scott: You’ve opened up more branches around the world, is RIA really paying that well? How is big business embracing RIA?

Dave: It really is.  We’re privately held, profitable and expanding at hundreds of percent growth.  We have been opening offices all over and we do that by finding great talent and putting walls around them.  We reached the coolest milestone the other day.  With the announcement of London the sun never sets on Cynergy <wink>.  What has been honestly the most surprising to me has been the  amount of traction from big business.  It’s not just the start-ups and bleeding edge types. Its Banks and Manufacturers and Fortune 50 software companies that are really engaging with RIAs. You combine that sign with the hardware vendors and our growth and it paints a pretty incredible picture. 

Scott: In a Sydney bar we had blast telling people Carson is really Damian Lewis, How many times since you have done that?

Dave: Actually we only chose Damian Lewis because we were in Oz.  Usually we go with the more rare but more popular Anthony Michael Hall move.

or or 

Carson is the one on the left, President of Cynergy Systems. I also would like to note that Anthony Michael Hall once played Bill Gates.. so Carson and opening up companies around the world? hmmm...

Cynergy Systems have also just recently opened offices in both Sydney & London. This is definitely a company to keep an eye on as we move forward in the RIA space.

State of Play

Devices are getting smarter, more usable and most important of all – cheap. If you are like me, you may have a lot of devices attached to your name lying around the house or work. I myself have 2x XBOX 360’s, 1x XBOX Original, 1x iPod Touch, 1x Zune, 1x iPod Nano, Samsung BlackJack and well heaps more.

I’m what many would call an “Enthusiast” when it comes to device ownership. Yet what does a lot of these have in common? They are essentially connected. The problem however is that they each require unique approaches to developing against and this is bad form and in my opinion, now becomes prime candidate for the RIA discussion to take place.

RIA is still at its infancy. It’s still heavily focused today in what it can do on the desktop but when you look at the context of what RIA hints at, it's really about delivering rich connected experiences within a sandbox existence.

The problem I foresee with RIA is it keeps getting pushed into inheriting desktop models, thus the sandbox boundaries start to be probed. It’s the wrong discussion, the right discussion is how to agree on a sandbox and then deploy the agreed sandbox to multiple devices. As this in turn can provide a prescribed format in which developer(s) can build once and then deliver to one or more surfaces.

This isn’t happening – Yet..

In 2007, Potential was on the horizon

Adobe and Apple are two power brands that are rumoured to get married soon. The rumours state that iPod Touch / iPhone and Flash Runtime are expected to be joined at the hip via some partnership of some kind between the two brands. The initial problem with this theory is that Apple and Adobe will have to agree on the terms of competition centred on QuickTime delivery vs. Flash delivery not to mention tooling such as Final Cut Pro vs. Adobe Premier.

It won't stop there either, Adobe AIR could also potentially hurt Apple with its Safari compete as what AIR really hints at is “please park me on a device” given its unique sandbox positioning. Thus the waters can be considered murky if the partnership were to go ahead.

However, let's assume Apple and Adobe was to become partners. This could now become a very interesting conversation to have as now the RIA debate gets hotter and stakes in the game get higher and harder. The state of play may very well change - not to mention the ripple effects associated with Apple/Adobe RIA's of tomorrow. As they now become a portable and desktop experience with a one-to-many build and delivery workflow.

Where does this leave Microsoft? I have no doubt we’d deliver a proportional response to this hypothetical should it arise (we essentially have strong movement in this space today), but the point is that it’s an attractive value proposition to consider - even for a brief moment – thus I’d encourage you to Start the conversation now while the overall RIA landscape is in its infancy.

The first part of the RIA on device discussion starts with UX Platform.

The overarching piece to the RIA conversation is UX Platform. It comprises of not just development environments (tools, workflow etc) but also client surfaces likely to be reached. It won’t stop there, the respective brands that play a role will also need to bid, broker, barter whatever it takes to get their nominated technology onto such devices - thus it requires an early bond with strong partners. The flip side to this is that there will also need to be an attractive developer base behind it – as no developers means limited solution delivery.

I firmly believe that Microsoft has the correct ingredients going forward, it’s relatively early days but the device discussion can still be influenced. The mood is right and this year is a great time to think beyond the browser and consider how our UX Platform fits in with tomorrow’s markets.

Going forward, three things are clear:

• Brands like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Google, Mozilla etc all have strong stakes in this game.
• Audio/Video is the first hunting grounds (market channel), as its got enormous amounts of eyeballs whom are found UX wanting.
• Developer & Designer workflow are at both a complex and yet fragile state one wrong move by the above brands and it could hurt significantly.

What’s not clear is who is likely to get 2/3 market share around devices with their nominated RIA solution (of course I’d say Microsoft has potential etc but I’m biased). This is where the next frontier will be and I predict 2008 is the year in which the discussion is going to be had.

I state this as it in 2007 we saw iPod Touch / iPhone and the first thoughts around that centered on how Social Network phenomenon like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr could get a piece of that action.

In short, RIA’s begging to be built, but with no SDK to match the proposed demand.

At any point, I've been given the task of aggregating this data to hand off to folks within the Silverlight Team.

So..

That being said, now is your chance to add to this further. If you have any ideas on what you'd love to see inside Silverlight tomorrow please leave either a comment or email me direct via scbarnes /__/ microsoft.com

Michael "Delicate Genius" Kordahi sent this around via internal mail and it was a great find Kordsey..

http://www.mason-zimbler.com/festivegreetings/

The fact they were able to put together a Silverlight "holynight" music & lyrics together was sheer imaginative talent.

Well done Mason Zimbler...

Local Silverlight guru, Liquidboy (Jose) has put together a sweet ball of code which essentially allows you to upload Flickr photos in Silverlight (via OpenFileDialog Class).

I won't echo what he's done (as he does a far better job than I ever could), suffice to say check it out as it's worth the read.

http://advertboy.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/flickr-multi-picture-uploader-done-in-silverlight/

I cannot get enough of his efforts!

I was asked via Steam Chat today from a close friend of mine "Where can I get some decent RIA work.." to which I had a fumbled reply (weakness here for our RIA community). It was a great question and something I've often thought about in terms of how our RIA communities from both Adobe and Microsoft work (another post).

Later that chat..

We got onto talking, and I should clarify that Grae is quite an exceptionally talented RIA Producer. He can both code and design with the best of them and I wish I could clone 50 more of him.

The biggest problem Grae faced was how to position himself that reflected on his capabilities and passion. His talent is never questioned, his approach is. In that he'll do what I used to do, join a team, begin building a product/solution and somewhere along the line hit a point of frustration. Then one starts to consider exit strategies.

The real problem for Grae is that he's taken roles that are either designer or developer, never really in the middle. To not only emphasis his pain points, he's also one of the guys in the team that can see all the angles from end to end thus frustration creeps in.

As he can see weak points in the code or design starting to arise and he wants to fix them, in fact he knows how to fix them but can't quite get the message across. As the moment he does, folks feel he's encroaching on their patch and can at times get defensive.

Here is where we need to all say this out loud. Grae, you're a RIA Architect.

The downside for folks like Grae is that software teams aren't acknowledging this position as well as they should. The ones that do, I feel are the ones whom are capable of shipping tomorrow.

I think it's high time we acknowledge this out loud and proud as you can spot the good RIA Architects of today. Just look at their resume and see the patterns that emerge. Usually they flip flop between design and developer and don't spend large periods of time in the one position.

Do not punish them for this, in fact pounce on them and give them a role that is in the form of software leadership, as trust me you will thank me for it in the long run.

Here's what Grae stated after I made him say "I'm a RIA Architect" out loud and proud:

seven: it wasn't until you said it then
seven: and I said it back
seven: that I realised actively what the source of my frustration was
seven: taking positions where I couldn't enact required change
seven: because no matter how high my role in the creative realm
seven: I didn't have enough authority
seven: to kick the asses of producers and tech
seven: and profitable RIA/Interactive requires a solid blend of creative, production and tech
seven: and works under an EP to deal with producers

If anyone needs a quality RIA Architect, give Grae a call/email.
grae.hall@gmail.com

I couldn't resist working the words "JackAss" and Silverlight in that way, what can I say I'm still a goofy kid at heart. Onto the story at hand and that is JackAss 2.5 via Blockbuster will premier online via Silverlight.

http://www.blockbuster.jackassworld.com/

What does this say overall?

Well it says that Silverlight is something world-wide online brands are giving serious consideration and whilst many folks would consider Silverlight "Not Ready" many on the other hand such as Blockbuster consider it ready (to answer when Silverlight is considered ready or not allow me to give you the magic number... 42.. when you see that it's ready)

As agencies continue to at times ignore the Silverlight potential, their competitors on the other hands are taking bets and willing to risk a little to gain a lot. I know this as I see the "training" rosters of agencies whom are signing up to be taught Silverlight, so it's not based off a magic goofy scotts eightball.

To put this into perspective, JackAss 2.5 online premier is one of the biggest projects in Blockbuster history. If companies as large as Blockbuster are willing to take the leap of faith, than expect more and more to follow (look at those whom are switching bit by bit).

It's clear with more and more of these powerhouse brands embracing our technology alongside design agencies around the world now considering "how do I use Silverlight as a marketing technology" we will have an impact in 2008+

That being said, more work ahead still so we aren't done

The Ecosystem to date.

The ecosystem around Silverlight is continuing to grow, with an impressive line-up of customers like MLB.com, BMW, Sony Ericsson, Baidu (#1 search site in PRC), NBA.com, Entertainment Tonight (CBS/Paramount) and UVNTV.com, to name a few.  See more at http://silverlight.net/Showcase/

Jackass 2.5 will be made available for free, for anyone in the US 17 or older, courtesy of Blockbuster at ww.blockbuster.jackassworld.com beginning December 19th through December 31st, 2007

It's not that I care whether they think we have pony tails, it's more to the point that it smacks of contempt at times for what it is these folks do. In that, I don't think it's deliberate and I'm sure in most cases it's said with a positive tone, but underneath it all there is a slight amount of "contempt".

I personally think interface designers are a smart breed and especially those whom are skilled in RIA. As when you look at most RIA solutions or any interface in today's software, one thing that gets overlooked is depth.

In that when you're designing a button for example, there are highlights and shadows associated to the design. That's the basics pretty much there, but when you then look at other elements and composition of some interface designs, have you not noticed the visual representation of depth found within these designs?

It doesn't really stop there, then there is also the colour selection, in that what colours are correctly placed within to underpin the usability of how an end user is able to navigate through various checkpoints in a User Interface.

This is all done at the design stage in most counts, as once an initial theme has been settled upon, the designer not only keeps that momentum going forward but at the same time is conscious of various variables that need to be factored into the overall equation.

Designing an Interfaces for RIA isn't always about shape adjustments, colour composition and pony tails. At times a lot of thought goes into both the x,y & z axis of how one is able to look at a 2D visual design and almost walk away believing they are viewing 3D but from a "front view".

So if you're a non-designer today, and you speak about them tomorrow, spare a thought for the thought process these folks go through in order to help make software what it is today.

A User Account Today.

Typically when you set out to build a RIA, you look at what data you're about to keep about a persons account. In that obviously "Username, Password and Email" are three key pieces of information you need to begin.  The rest is the other metadata associated to an account, and in CRM's you'd go deeper in terms of phone numbers etc.

The data is up to you and I'd never dictate what you should and shouldn't capture. What I am focused on is how you present that data, in that how "Rich" do you want the experience to be in terms of presenting what is probably the most boring data in a RIA.

I'd wager majority use Tabs + Forms and basically categories this into neat portions that are close to being semantically correct (in terms of which heading they fall under - look into information architecture).

Context is what though?

What's the context of having a person(s) username & password in a form along side their other information? Isn't this more of a security thing vs a personal bio? What if you're profiling your accounts based on experience they've had with you as well? where do you put that data?

Point is, suddenly your tabbed approach starts to get bogged down and the next thing you know it, you're facing a comprehensive set of tabs (stacked ontop of one another most likely) and the form probably grows in metrics - width/height to accommodate).

Let's put the Rich back into RIA.

Well, I'd now argue that if you're using some of the new RIA technologies, why the heck are you using Tabs? In that, you've got the ability to go beyond a form now, in that the technology is a blank canvas and the experience is up to your imagination (alongside some basic Usability Principals).

That's the key, why have a form (which after traversing through a grid), presents you with more then you bargained for. Why drop the experience there, why not approach it differently - radically if you will.

Step away from the Tabs as you know it..

In the below example I did something trivial, I took all these pieces of a users profile and applied them in a format that is well similar to a Mobile Phone.

The reason I did this is what's the best device on the planet at the moment that has almost figured out how to cram a lot of data into a small portion (screen). In that assign "icons" to represent what the tabs would typically do, but also do so that it's broken into piece meal format(s). Let the user then decide which part of a users detail they want to drill into.

That's all well in good, but where is the Form?

So once the "Profile PDA" (if you will) has been conjured up, how does the end user get into the form?

Well, this is where your imagination needs to do it's job. In that take the above example, it states that I've selected the "User Profile" card, which in this case means "this is the users contact profile" so the form could then spring out (overlay the top of grid style layout) and present the persons details in a similar looking "Contact Card". (Sorry still working on the artwork for that).

Point is,  you've just isolated the overall account metadata into one small piece, once clicked it expands into a richer experience (I assume your next step will be rich!). The experience is the motivator here, in that let's make this form almost feel like some GUI found within games, like you've hacked into some year 2055 future looking CRM - have fun with the data but be serious with it, as it's business still.

What are your users thinking?

I hinted in an article before that when you build your RIA's you should think about monitoring the users interaction with it. In that in the above GUI you will note a "smiley speech bubble icon". This is basically an idea whereby when a user logs into the system, they not only get asked their Username & Password but also "how you feeling right now?".

Based on their answer, the Profile PDA adjusts it's UI to suite. This will then empower the owner of the RIA system to get an understanding of the emotional state of their users (why isn't important, it serves this example so stop asking questions).

let's assume when I logged in today, I nominated my emotion as angry. This then updates a row in a database (simple flag) and the UI reacts to my emotional state (in that what if the outer GUI would reflect on colours that would help cheer me up or does something that makes me laugh? - maybe a joke in a newsticker or a funny youtube overlay).

Emotions are for weaklings, I love Vista how does this matter?

Well, as you'll note in the Profile PDA next to the "Scott Barnes" part, there is also a "Vista Zealot" icon (I got these from an icon set called "Forum Faces"). In my RIA I'm curious to know what type of breed my profiles are? in that what do their peers think of them and again, can the User Interface react to suite this (advertising could suite more towards Vista compatible software instead of BeOS hehe). If the account in question was a Mac fanboi etc you could also insert an icon that represents this.. etc etc..

Conclusion.

The objective of this post was to trigger thought, in that you are armed with some of the greatest, most agile and excited technology to build with and the first thing we typically see in most RIA's is a typical "form" mentality and I often ponder on this. I can see it's easier to ship, and well I don't fault that at all. It just irritates me the most though, as I think user experience isn't just about pre-defined design patterns, it has more potential and the objective I'd like to see tomorrow's RIA have is that they react to context.

I want software to react to me for a change, I want to be able to punish and reward my software and lastly I want it to be something that can adjust my mood and that of the work force.

Software isn't just about balancing general ledgers, it can also be about fun and just because you're building a complex financial system doesn't mean it also can't be fun at the same time.

Think about it, why does the Friday emails get sent around in email about some funny random act that happened around the world. It helps break the day up a little and that's my hope for RIA.

Q.What's that RIA you're building Scott?

I've got this idea for a RIA Platform, it's something I've been very slowly chipping away at for the past 2 years. It's being built in Microsoft technology (was built in Adobe Flex), and I'll expand more another day, as I'm not ready to talk about it just yet (it's my personal project that I hope to release before I grow old and retire heh).

(I'm also thinking of ways to one day pitch it internally to become a Microsoft Product.. i have but a dream..)

As a result, you can't let things slide. You're audience are less forgiving and demand near perfection, and when it doesn't happen it can either make or break you in a heart beat. The main reason is, that mainstream press are constantly hovering over most of the game studios, waiting for them to trip up and provide them a scoop on some small amount of detail, which has enough to draw their readers attentions (given Gaming Magazines / Sites are a dime a dozen).

Games are not only judged by their covers, but also their actual functionality and more importantly the user experience. Talk about the toughest critics, if a 12 year old cannot figure out how to make their City (SimCity) run in an economic environment that has huge amounts of hurdles before them, damned if they will praise it or talk about it front of their friends. If that same 12 year old can't figure out how to complete a Quest due to poor visuals (early days of World of Warcraft), they will not only talk about it, but it will be so damn loud that others will help carry that voice forward.

Yes, Gaming companies have the toughest hurdle excluding Operating System makers (Microsoft gets an absolute beating at times on everything). Yet, Software applications get rated in a fashion that's more moderated. Did this application fit my business requirements, yes/no/partially.

Rich Internet Applications are now being thrust into the void between gaming and line of business, they are asked to mimic all the great elements of gaming experiences but also have the serious component required for lines of business. In this context, despite the attraction to this line of thinking, they are ultimately doomed as there is no guide post for this type of success.

This has increased the variables beyond the reach of mere mortals at present, whilst the technology is here today and is getting closer with each iteration, it however needs to overcome one undiscovered variable - humans. Humans are a funny thing, we love patterns but can't explain them, if you were to ask the above 12 year old or others like him "Which game do you love the most, and why" I guarantee you will get a variety of answers in response (if you don't, startup a game studio now as you have the market cornered).

I think the key ingredient in all great software in both gaming and line of business, is context. It has to be context driven to a persons persona, the user interface needs to react in a way that keeps the end users pain points in perspective. I wasn't kidding around when I suggested that "XBOX Achievement Points" should be built into all mainstream software at Microsoft, as it would encourage the users to gain more awareness of how the software they have bought works, furthermore it rewards them for both their failures and successes and lastly, it provides them a clear benchmark on how they are doing.

I hate doing my expense reports here at Microsoft, simply because it's primative that it's almost bordering on embarassing. Ask any employee at Microsoft, they will gripe and moan about it. Yet, I wonder if we were to make this into some game, in which we compete in some way and at the same time get rewarded.

"Scott, congratulations, you've just completed your 50th Expense Report, and you win a prize from the company store".

It doesn't take much, just some imagination mixed with Microsoft UX Platform and you stand a far better chance of reaching employee satisifcation for mundane task through simple User Experience that differs from "Serious" software (yet the data layer beneath the UI doesn't alter). Games aren't forced into consumers hands, they are wanted. Business applications are mostly forced into the workforces hands, how about we make them want it as well?

I am Scott Barnes, and I love my RIA.

I have an Icon fetish that is disturbingly wrong. In that I collect them, horde them and will happily spend Microsoft's good hard earned money on as many of them as I can find - if allowed.

Yet, what makes Icon's so special? in that why do they enhance an applications user interface to the point where it almost is lost without them. Why does Microsoft and Apple spend a lot of money and time ensuring that menu navigation and icon's are done in a manner that's not only attractive to the eye, but enhance a users experience?

Well, I decided to ask our UX folks, the same folks whom chose Icons for our operating systems, software applications and so on. I had one intent, to get to the bottom of this whole Icon business and more to see where Icon's can play a role in tomorrows RIA. RIA is going to embrace the icon market, something I have now doubt and so with this, onto the top 10 questions with Frank Bisono & Brittnie Hervey (UX demi-gods).

Top 10 Questions for the Icon Ninja's here at Microsoft.

Q1. What is an icon?, in that we all see them daily in software but what does the icon represent to the end user?

Brittnie: An icon represents an action a user will take.

Frank: For our purposes, an icon would be a graphical representation (small picture or object) for a file, application or command (action). For the end user it should be an easy way to quickly identify what product they are in and what action they could take on a given object.

Q2. When you choose an icon, what is the process that you go through in selecting the right one?

Brittnie: In Vista there is set usages for every icon that we define when created. We align the concept of the functionality the user is taking to the best visual representation we can get based on elements rather than words.

Frank: So generally you don’t just have the luxury of choosing a pre-existing icon here. For most products or features, we create a custom icon. On the server side, this means literally THOUSANDS of icons. We follow the same process as Brittnie described above. That generally means meeting with a PM and translating the description for this icon into a graphical representation. Sometimes we have existing elements that we re-use to create an icon, other times, it’s a completely custom concept and we start from scratch.

Q3. Microsoft has released some guidelines around designing icon's, do you feel that the icon design community adhere to these?

Brittnie: I believe it depends on group and situation. Our current guidelines do not map 1 to 1 to what MS sets as guidelines. I think we adhere when appropriate. This is a harder question to answer.

Frank: If you mean the design community OUTSIDE of Microsoft, well – it all depends. We haven’t put out the most robust set of guidelines I’ve seen, but they are generally a pretty good start. The main problem I have seen with regards to icons is that sometimes the importance of an icon is overlooked. There are the obvious visual aspects of creating an icon, but then there are also things to consider such as geopolitical issues that can come back to haunt a developer or studio. The last thing you want to do is insult a particular culture with the use of an icon that has a detrimental meaning to them. I’ve also seen updates to products that continue to use icons developed for an older platform like XP. If you are targeting your application to run in Vista, then you need to refresh the icons to match the visual style we have set for Vista (the aero style). The last thing I’ll note is that all too often I’ve seen folks take a shortcut and use an icon designed for use at say 256x256 and they scale it down to fit a 16x16 block. Or even worse, they upscale an icon. That just doesn’t fly. There are a number of reasons why you can’t just shrink an icon in Photoshop and call it a day, and the same goes for sizing an icon up. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t look good.

Q4. I've always said that the icon market is ripe for the picking giving the technology going forward, where do you foresee this market going and is there room for icons in formats such as XAML?

Brittnie: I foresee icons becoming less important and the UI itself becoming more self explanatory. With that being said I don’t think icons will ever go completely away, just less needed.

Frank: The icon market is definitely getting more advanced. We are now seeing icons as large as 512x512 directly in the UI and with much richer detail than ever. I totally see a future with dynamic icons that change as the application’s state changes. As the graphics engines in our OS get better, so too will the use of icons and the value they can bring to the OS or application. That’s just one example. As far as XAML, there’s definitely something to be said there as well. Right now if you take an icon created in Illustrator, you could export that as XAML and drop that right into code using Expression Blend. After all, a vector is nothing more than a mathematical computation rendered as a graphic right? But another way to drop that into XAML is by defining a brush in Blend with an icon image and then using that brush in Blend (this is for when you only have a bitmap icon for example). The “icon” does ok at scaling, but there is room for improvement using that technique. XAML is definitely going to present some interesting possibilities moving forward with WPF applications. We are still WAY early in defining that, but as we move more towards a WPF based environment, you will see more attention being given to XAML Icons.

Q5. I have an icon fetish, i just seem to store them, 1000's of them. Do you also have hordes of icons tucked away on your hard drive and what is it you look for in the design styles?

Brittnie: No, I do not have many different icons I store on my hard drive but we do have thousands tucked away on a sever/share. The design style is the same for all the icons we create, as we have the Vista guidelines we follow. I only collect those icons. J

Frank: Well, I’m not going to lie here, I am a total icon fanboi I literally have TENS of THOUSANDS of them hoarded away on my drives at home. I’ve been collecting them for years. I just love customizing my desktop and folders using custom icons.

Q6. OSX and Windows Vista have a unique design style to both, and lately the "Glass Effect" plays a role in design style(s). Why is this so? and do you have any thoughts on the next upcoming fashionable style?

Brittnie: I believe this is because it is a new visual style that you don’t see in a lot of places, and it gives the icons an extra bang. They feel more like a piece of art work then they do just a simple icon and glass adds some elegance. I can’t predict the next trend, but if I had to guess, I would think it would be a hybrid between the MSN style of icons and the current Vista style, giving a little less importance to the icon, and more importance to the UI.

Frank: Hmmm, the glass factor. Yeah, this is all the rage and trend lately, but I think we’ll see some evolution in the coming years. The glass thing is just a little too shiny and a little too frosty in places and I think you will start seeing that get toned down a bit. The big effect there is transparency. Like anything else though, too much is a bad thing. I would totally tell you what I think the next trend in icons will be, but I’d rather keep that a secret and let you see it when we release it.

Q7. What is the biggest mistake a developer or designer can do in choosing an Icon for their applications?

Brittnie: In our world they could use the icon incorrectly, which then breaks the users understanding of what that icon does. Windows, Windows Live, & IE all use the same library of icons so using them correctly helps the user to immediately identify what action is going to be taken when the icon is clicked, thus enhances the User experience. The second thing they could do wrong is size an icon up from a smaller file, pixilation then occurs in the image.

Frank: Totally in sync with Brittnie here. An example of using an icon incorrectly would be choosing an icon that has traditionally had a different metaphor to mean something else in your UI. This is BAD…REAL BAD. It’s hard to retrain people to think about something in a different way and if your use of an icon gives the user a result other than the intended result because of a bad metaphor, well then you just hosed the usability of your product. Metaphors in general can be a bad thing and should be avoided unless it is universally known. You have to think about localization here and what the icon could potentially mean in another culture.

Q8. What advice would you give to the design market around producing a set of icons? given that most software vendors require a themed approach?

Brittnie: I guess the advice I would give would depend on what style they were trying to create an icon in. If they were trying to create an icon in the Vista style I would say the most important thing to do is work closely with the library owner so they can understand what is already built, and how to visual represent something that needs to map into our icons, and to make sure the style guide is being followed.

Frank: For designers outside of MSFT, the #1 thing I’d say they need to know their target audience. Sounds stupid, but if none of your users are running Vista (which we all know they should right? J), then you shouldn’t be using the Aero theme for your icons or your UI will look like butt. This is where proper research comes into play. Know the limitations of your product. Think about WHERE the icon will be used, platform, form factor, etc. (mobile device or a huge honkin projection screen in a NOC center). Think about the environment in which your icon will be seen (potential lighting situations, types of display technology). We all like to think we are designing icons that will be used on a Windows box in a home or office environment, but the reality is that your icon could end up in a place you never expected it to. You have to think about a lot of factors when choosing the right design. Think ahead, anticipate the unexpected and ask a lot of questions.

Q9. Icon's typically have two states associated to them (eg: recycle bin, full/empty). Yet some (Audim on OSX for example) are now using animation to represent status change, what advice would you give around keeping that from getting out of hand?

Brittnie: I would say each situation needs to be addressed case by case. I avoid using animation or multiple states of icons unless there is a status to an icon that needs to be represented for its functionality. I think the cost of making second/third icons and the additional cost of animating those icons will keep us from doing it too often. That is usually where I push back from when an icon of this type is requested.

Frank: I would actually argue that it ISN’T typical for an icon to have 2 states. There are definitely times when this is the case however. Status change and animation are two separate things. You can have one without the other. I think that having status change is an effective way of providing feedback to a user for certain things. Animation is where things would tend to get out of control if not done correctly. In the case of an object that is synchronizing something or transferring data, I can see the value of adding animation to an icon because it’s representing that there is a task in progress. It’s live feedback letting the user know something is happening. But gratuitous animation for the sake of animation is where you start getting into the cheese factor. How long did those flaming .gifs and websites with music last back in 1995? Yeah…

Q10. Why can't we have a universal icon format that fits all platforms, devices and other digital surfaces.

Brittnie: I think it would be AMAZING to have all platforms support then same file type/format, but I don’t know if this would ever be possible considering the constraints on the web that don’t exist in the OS.

Frank: I also think that the idea of a universal icon format would be ideal. Unfortunately we live in a world where everyone wants to be king and nobody wants to concede to the other player. You can say that about almost any format on the market. Blue Ray vs. HD DVD / PDF vs. XPS / RAW vs. DNG, the list goes on. Then you have the issue of maintaining backwards compatibility and re-engineering existing apps to take advantage of a universal format. Then who owns it? I think people are just set in their ways and on the grand scheme of things, a universal icon format isn’t at the top of the list of priorities for most folks. It’s a shame really, but I guess that’s life in the 21^st century.

Conclusion

I think that there is going to be a very lucrative market ahead for Icon Designers, especially as RIA begins to heat up more and more as technology gets advanced. Themed Icon designers, and quality ones will be in high demand along side UI designers - in fact - one could argue that a good UI designer for applications should come in armed with Icon Design capabilities. As you can then complete the entire themed experience in a way that others may not be able to.

XAML, is also something in which I think there is going to be strong possibilities around, and the ability to transfer icons back and forth amongst designer & developer workflow will also work towards reduction of having to design icon's for different scales (16,32,48 etc).

This is also something which probably doesn't get discussed enough, in that Microsoft can offer a lot of maturity in this space going forward. We have exceptionally talented, intelligent and extremely focused User Experience folks on our payroll. I expect as time passes we will continue to see some of this thoughtleadership and maturity help shape the Microsoft Next Web strategy.

RIA isn't just about technology, it also needs maturity and leaders in this space.

More information on Microsoft Design, check out:
http://www.microsoft.com/design

Also we have icon design guideline(s) which others may find useful:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511280.aspx

Yet, one thing that was uncovered in the process is what really is the difference between RIA and a website? I mean technically speaking the Website of today is really getting blurry in what it's doing vs supposed to. I say this as the AJAX movement has empowered webowners (if that's the right title) to embrace JavaScript driven experiences without question (something you would of been publicly beaten up on in the early days).

This blog is what I'd classify a website, but one could also argue that it has a degree of "application" associated to it, in that think of the context of use. You visit the site, you read my posts, you decide to move on or leave a comment - if you will - you reply.

Now where have I seen that methodology before. Oh yes, email.

What are the differences between Email Messages and Blogs, especially as more and more agents popup around the globe in helping you manage all your RSS feeds. Yet, at the grass roots of them all, they are simply websites?

What is RIA today, and where is it going. Already folks from the competition are talking about branded applications being accepted as RIA? (*shrug*)

Website or Application? show me the distinct difference between Flickr and Picnik.com? once you do, compare the results against Nike+ while at the same time compare to <insert your favourite RIA here>.

Confused? I know I am and I've been in this space since 1999. I must be getting old and all this new RIA fashion seems to be skewing my understanding of a website.

Is it a case of "If it has a runtime, it's classified as RIA until proven otherwise" or is it even possible today to show a definitive split between website and application. That being said, the Rich part of the discussion will be easy, as it's simply a case of underpinning the user experience quality and degrees of such.

Overall, I doubt there will be a true definitive answer suffice to say, the term is slowly starting to crack in places and in a very subtle way, being bent to suite different agenda's. In saying this, my conclusion is that it's fast becoming a term that lacks maturity, governance and is practically the same as other terms like CMS, CRM, ERP, SOA etc.

It's what you make of it, and any whom oppose your belief is both right and wrong. It will just come down to your debating skills as to which of the two will ultimately win out.

In the end, it's all a website, just with different grades of user experience housed within an aggregated view over different layers of services.

“I was a young man with uninformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.” - Charles Darwin

I start with this quote, as at times we all get overtaken by absolutes and assume that is the law of the land and be done with it. To challenge a belief, is never popular and to ask a community to adjust their perception can be considered misconduct or easily labeled as bullying behavior / crazy. Religions are formed based on loosely defined ideas and when an agenda is the fueling such ideas, absolute obedience is required. To then defy such obedience, those that do so can be swarmed by what I call the "policy" police, obedience must be protected at all costs.

As a result, emotions boil and nothing get's resolved, except someone sure as the earth is round, get's a beating.

Allow me to explain further.

When you think of RIA what is it your mind casts an image to first? I think each person will have a unique response, but I would hazard a guess it could/may involve a focus on brand power. If you do conjure this image, you are now sadly seeing the wrong approach to RIA and you can be forgiven as branding can be easily crossbred to produce application like solutions.

If you don't, ignore this post and continue on building RIA, then come back and show me or others

RIA isn't about attention/eyeballs, it's supposed to be focused on empowering end users of a defined type, to carry out mundane task through an enriching user experience. User Experience is the key, in that a true RIA solution has the power to abstract complexity through aggregation or 360 degree view(s) of content without altering context.

One would further argue this is the same principals of what a Desktop Experience should have, and I would easily agree. In fact, I hope the next evolution of the Desktop driven software does! - yet - the difference between a Desktop and RIA client, is simply that it has the ability to be positioned within the middle tier. It has the capability of being utilized on any client or device surface with minimal effort required by such end user(s).

It simply put, empowers.

It looks like a desktop, therefore it's RIA right?

If you were to take a simple example, of a typical HTML bullet list of names (eg: HR Review System). Each name represents a person or entity within a organization. The end user clicks on such name, and as a result the context of view alters and the screen repaints with what typically would be a more in depth view of such person (personal details in tabs, photos, review metadata etc). If you were to then throw in some animations, form controls, transition sequences or a desktop styled menu bar - one could then argue "behold! this is RIA, see.. it looks like a desktop".

Yet what has happened in reality? Sure the UX has gotten a better story behind it and it may be more inviting, but what really has happened to the context of view and how did this alter a persons experience from what is typically found within a Desktop solution of similar type (ahah! X-Platform you say.. hold that thought).

This is where RIA is essentially ready to take over from such a web site driven experience. It has the power to alter perception, to adjust the context further by allowing the end user to aggregate slices of such data to carry out more complex tasks yet doesn't require as much effort.

If you were to swap out the bullet list of hyper linked names, and replace them with Document Icons within a GridView Container. Each Icon has a male/female icon in the top right corner. Below such icon is maybe some other metadata (ie star rating on such users performance, profession type indicator, etc).

The UX story doesn't just change, but the overall complexity becomes more abstract as now the end user has the possibility of thinking of this bullet list as becoming a living breathing document. A document that I want to drag to another zone within the User Interface. A document that I want to cut and paste elsewhere. A document that I want to print, edit or merge, A document that I want to see pages of data to view and explore with the context of a single person in mind. A desktop experience, housed within a middle tier.

The experience changes, the interactivity of the experience changes and yet the data behind the rich client has the capability of staying static, un touched or passive (whichever you choose to best describe this). One has the ability to treat it like a document, but with hidden twists and turns along the way. As you scroll down a page of data around a person, you see form controls embedded within. You may even see video, audio or what have you around that person also embedded within - much like some Harry Potter magical news paper. RIA isn't about forms or emulating a desktop UI, it goes far beyond this.

That is Rich Interactive Application (RIA) shifting the paradigm. It had nothing to do with the Internet, suffice to say it's housed within an agent which is connected to the Internet - or - Intranet.

Whom says you can't copy and paste between Facebook and Flickr, the only thing stopping you is you're ability to aggregate the view(s) and focus on mature approach to RIA's instead of wanting Flickr and Facebook to become the actual RIA's.

RIA needs maturity to succeed.

What we are seeing publicly online more of these days, is microsite styled branded solutions being classified as RIA, something which at every turn sets the idea of RIA back further. The confusion between attention economies and application have given birth to such cross bred solutions, and as a result immaturity reigns supremacy. The loudest voices win all arguments and so the mob takes over control. The fallout / collateral damage? technology, partners and ecosystems underpinning RIA in it's early infancy can starve themselves of more realistic enterprise grade potential. Simply because of how easily perception becomes reality, how advertising and buzzwords overshadow core ideas and principals of design.

I look at a company like Microsoft. I think of many things about Microsoft, but one thing that I find most if not all will agree upon, maturity. It's a company that works very hard at maintaining maturity (patience mostly) in it's solutions and being successful is easy, staying successful - now that is the real hard trick. Is it perfect? no, but whom/what really is perfect? Today's IT Perfection is simply an evolutionary process, growing more intelligent as time passes and trying not to repeat past mistakes from not only their own history, but others.

RIA for Microsoft is important, it's the in part one of the key pillars to our future. Our over arching vision in my mind is similar to the what the original architects, engineers and designers of the Millau viaduct faced.

Millau Viaduct is a story, of defiance. Bridges are common around the world, and there are many ways to tackle them, but the ones that stand out are the ones that are defiant in their ability to do more than just allow people to go from one end to another.

Here is a bridge, that spans enormous heights and has an impressive length that would scare any politician in terms of funding (as it's construction will end up going beyond their term of employment). It crosses over terrain that roads themselves have a hard time navigating, but none the less its also made with enormous amounts of passion and it's actual design was built to inspire, to be photographed and in many ways intimidate the imagination but not scare (as well, you got to cross that damn bridge in the end).

I've studied the story of this bridge as it fascinated me, and in the end it required mature thinking, mature engineering and mature ecosystem to support it's vision. You can't build something this size without a strong partners, understanding of your target audience and more importantly the best engineers money can buy.

Microsoft brings years of experience in the software industry to RIA. It's bringing an entire product eco system, matched with partners whom have invested billions in the products it ship's year after year. It won't inherit someone else's legacy, it will look to make it's own mark, and help shape RIA into something much like what it believes marvels like Millau viaduct achieved. It won't be the only company to do so, but I would lay bets that it has the capability to raise the benchmark high.

Our vision of RIA is still being built, what you see before you today is simply "Pillar 1", the next hurdle, is Pillar 2 and so on. Understand the destination, and you will have a firm grasp on the journey ahead.

What do you want to be? an engineer? architect? project manager or critic?

Competition is a good thing right?

Hold the bridge analogy in your mind.

I started this post with a quote form Charles Darwin. It reminded me of this whole compete situation I seem to dance with some all to often. Folks, it's simple, a religion has been formed and disciples have been born and any whom oppose will be swarmed in those whom will try an enlighten.

In fact, this entire post could be argued as a religious doctrine according to Microsoft Staffer such as myself. That's ok, I hope not but I'm indifferent to what folks do with this, suffice to say two things - I don't pretend to be the oracle of that which is RIA and I hope all it does is provoke original thinking (negative or positive, but please pause long enough to consider what RIA is).

I find the RIA conversation within the Adobe blogsphere anchored down with a notion that one man's idea is tomorrows vision. It has no ending, and it really never had a beginning it was simply an idea for the future in which Macromedia products should head towards (it was bold, and the marketing brochure had me sold). It was marketed as best it could, the technology made some strong effort in the "Rich Internet Application aka Rich Client" space, but in the end it realistically didn't take as quickly as this one man hoped it would when it was authored.

Like all software companies, mistakes were made and I could point out lots but in the end, the vision changed, just the doctrine didn't get updated. A new change of the guard was established and two cultures whom once fought over which had the first piece in UX technology, united and painted what I call an upgrade to the "Macromedia RIA Roadmap" - only, it looked different to this one mans vision.

At this point, I'd like to make mention of something that stuck with me when I first heard movement of Silverlight/WPF from Microsoft (pre joining Microsoft). A Macromedia staffer told me once "...See, they know RIA is the future and so they are now validating it by competing in our market(s)".

Validating? or simply tired of waiting for the first pillar of the bridge to be built?

Competition is a good thing, and it will be something that both brands will continue to knawel away at until something big happens. That big thing could be anything and everything and I don't think it will be the one whom finishes the bridge first. I think it's going to come down to many things, but the neither has the perfect solidified answer.

RIA though, needs to evolve from where it was yesterday/today into where it should be tomorrow. Inheriting a Product Roadmap from one brand and expect all other brands to follow suite, isn't the way forward. Rich Interactive Applications is simply Microsoft's vision of "Pillar 2". "Pillar 3" may take on a different name and the ultimate choice for one and all is simply figuring out which bridge is worth investing in it's construction.

You can make dual investments or you can make just one. Competition is a good thing, but it can also limit your potential should you invest on blind faith. (now you can let go of the bridge analogy).

The Gorilla.

RIA discussions take many forms and depending on whom your buying from and why, you will argue what you will. Yet, I'm left with a final summary of it all today.

In a cage is a chimp and a 800lbs gorilla, the chimp is good at making jokes, dancing and performing amazing tricks. It captures the crowd's attention with such display and most applaud it's behavior, even the Gorilla (whilst others deplore it's caged state). Yet, it comes to feeding time, one of them goes hungry the other doesn't.

The trick for you the upcoming bridge/RIA/developer/designer/disciple is to figure out whom the gorilla is, whom the chimp is and lastly but the most important of all - when is feeding time likely to begin?.

There is no right or wrong answer and it's up to you to make what you will of it all. Everyone around you tells you what RIA is and isn't but in the end, you still don't know, because you're preoccupied with figuring out whom is the Gorilla and whom is the Chimp.

I think the first one is brilliant especially since a few Adobe staffer's and I have gotten into a bit of an online debate over RIA (Interactive vs Internet). Any guesses as to whom the Windows guy is? *grin* and how about the Adobe guy....

I especially love the Linux shirt.

Be sure to add their blog to your RSS Feed for future comics (there are three more on their way already).

http://www.nectarine.com.au/nectarineblog/index.php?/archives/14-Barely-Out-Of-Beta-comic-strip.html

A RIA runtime, is one of these products that can reshape and redefine context under the guise of being passive while unbeknown to others, it's quite aggressive in the way it hijacks segments of use.

A couple of years ago, I meet up with a fellow-RIA developer, who showed me approaches to using the runtime that I guess challenged the way in which I've approached technology. The way in which he did this, was he showed be a before and after approach to the same software, yet one had RIA and one had HTML. It was pretty much a straight forward deal; on one side you had an ugly HTML User Interface (UI) while on the other you had this rich vibrant UI.

The rich vibrant UI was the easier sell, as lets face it, we do tend to at times judge a book by its cover - sorry, it does happen. Yet, one thing that stood out from the start that I couldn't quite explain to others that he conveyed to me was that the perception was changed or be it, context.

 You see, there wasn't just a sexier UI over the top, no, what was really changed was the fact that instead of seeing a HTML Bullet List of names, suddenly we were seeing a directory of documents. Yes that's right, documents which suddenly changed folk's perceptions or context of use (content/data didn't move a muscle).

Looking at a HTML list, it's vanilla and doesn't provide you much in terms of interaction. You move your mouse over it, at times there maybe style updates but other then that it's still simply a plain old list. A developer could spice things up, by allowing a context box to hover under the mouse pointer as one moves over the listed item. Thus giving a more detailed look into what's behind the listed item ( which the developer may get some applause for ).

Yet, what this RIA Producer did was change the context of the data's use, by turning a list item into a document. So now, end users could be expected to now approach the exact same data set (being for this example, a persons name and say their personal information) with pre-defined expectations.

The end-user could arguably, click on the document of the persons name and then expect to carry out actions such as copy or print? (desktop centric experience) The end-user could also expect to double click on the document and see a more detailed view of the end user in a report style approach. The list (heh) could go on.

So now, the context of use has changed - the data / content really didn't though - and it was done by trickery using a RIA runtime.

Now, comes the AJAX evangelist(s), I see you, sitting in the front row ready to pounce on any mention of how great runtimes (such as Silverlight) are. AJAX can do the above, no question about it, but it could also be more work to get to that point and lets face it, hunting and gathering the data in an efficient timely manner with richer UI that's controlled 100% by the agent in which its viewing across all manners of operating systems - is well... harder then it looks.

To do the above, is basically really small amount of work - in fact the hardest part is deciding what protocol and approach you'd like to take to mine such data.

The overall point I have is that RIA can really shift context into gear, it can not only provide radical adjustments to the perception of how data will be used within UI, but it can also be used as a bridge or conductor if you will over how disparate backend technologies can be bridled.

It's got an easy approach to getting the visuals out of the way, so one can focus more on data transmissions back and forth. It can work closely with DOM by not only allowing it to be overlaid on top but it can also provide a much faster turn around in injecting packets of HTML into the DOM Hierarchy given via server-side.

Context is why RIA should be used, not because "all the kids are doing it".

Right across from it is also a McDonalds which once all cooking devices are installed etc takes up pretty much similar space.

The McDonalds is constantly busy, as approx 100k people a day move in and out of the gates so one can imagine the general population that love their McDee's.

The coffee shop however, not only sells coffee but is also part of another company that sells sandwiches and all sorts of "fresh' food. Overall, they take up twice the space as McDonalds and have a fraction of the customers.

To be blunt, they are a waste of space.

Reason being was I visited it every morning to get my Coffee and Toasted Raison toast, I'd have to line-up every morning, wait approx 10mins (on a good morning) and then began a walk of shame back to my office. I kept chastising myself for giving these folks money as I felt they weren't earning it.

They were taking up prime real-estate and not even making an effort to entice customers away from McDonalds, something which is hard but yet most would do if given a reason, given they *could* provide a healthier alternative?

So how does this all relate to RIA & UI?
Well simply put I often wonder a lot as to why most software these days have so much screen real-estate either wasted or simply overcrowded?  As more and more people are adopting windscreens, the ratio of UI usability is changing, and concepts like Microsoft Office's Ribbon were born to cope with managing such real estate.

It's about maximizing someone's work efficiency through software, not conforming to everyone else's take on how information / control is to be presented? There are obviously talented usability experts (much like my co-worker Shanemo), but not all have the budget and access to guys like him. What to do? how does one ensure the UI is within context of the end user and empowers them to gain various levels of access to content buried within such an application as a RIA (Rich Interactive/Internet Application).

Context will be keep you focused.
Using the above Coffee Shop example, my ideal world would be to subdivide the coffee shops, put in more attractive businesses that "value add" to the 100k people walking past each day and hope that someone's busy life is that much easier. Same goes with UI, I'd prefer if software had UI built to suite a persons actual Position Description, rather then hunt for the Universal approach.

Think back to the software you use daily, and ask yourself on a % scale? How much do you actually use? What if someone were to aggregate all these disparate software UI's and provided you with a central one-stop shop that suites your Position Description (not just your personal context)?

Instead, its put on the "too hard" pile or "not my job" pile, much like the Eftpos/POS machines located in most stores (the ATM style side swipe ones). Has it not occurred to the Eftpos industry that a universal "side" would be great? Instead you always fumble around with it going "oops, wrong side", flip your card and try again. Think about the context in which a user is going to use your product, what are their roles within such product and lastly be bold and take risks where you can get away with it (my colleagues in the  UXE's division will hunt me down for saying that) - but - seriously put together a risk matrix (likelihood / consequences) of shifting how features within the UI are to be positioned, whom knows you may accidentally come across your own Microsoft Office Ribbon success story.

An ecosystem is something that RIA Producers need the most, as it's not just simply about punching out an application that can do something better then most HTML or Desktop clients are capable of doing. That's the end delivery and usually the piece that the end-user only see's, but prior to this the developer or designer needed to have buy-in to get to this point in time.

What are the factors that motivate a designer or developer to invest into a runtime and languages associated to such runtime? (not always in the below order either)

Community
This is initially the first piece that I'd wager most would look at. If I invest into this language and runtime, whom are likely to be my peers and influencers? where could I go should I need to have support or better yet help guide me through the teenage years of learning a new technology. A strong community foundation is critical, it's key and without this it could easily shy potential new recruits away.

Communities should be both online and offline, have a strong support with regards to User Groups and most importantly have an easy "onramp" to learning about a runtime with minimal pain & suffering. Communities also ensure the possibility of career movement, with a strong community in place one is able to put out a call (marketing channel) for "recruits" to a company on a given category within the runtime. It also means folks whom have risen in the learning ranks of a runtime, can scout for potential employers.

Communities are the oxygen to RIA adoption.

Tools
If you're going to build something, why not demand a tool that has an "instant build idea button" put inside it? It's but a small request is it not? Tools are also critical to successful adoption as technically we could write lines and lines of code within a plain old "Notepad" style application. This could work but we'd prefer to have colorize code, automated database layer mappings, compilers that understand strong typing and all these sorts of things that speed up our day to day lives in producing some RIA.

Tools need to be smart, they need to address my pain points today but also my potential future ones tomorrow and oh, could they do the same for my neighbor in the other cubicle at work. Tools need to ensure the workflow is held together for both a Developer and Designer.

Workflow
A workflow must be fluid, factor in both Tools and Skills and merge the two together, but also needs to be mature enough that should a recruit come to the table late, there is already lessons learnt that they don't have to go through in order to continue forward. A workflow can many things, it can be an approach to a framework housed within the Runtime but it can also be simply a way in which developers & designers talk amongst one another, a foundation in which they can communicate.

Partners
You can do all this yourself, but it will be a very prescribed approach and to locked in. A strong partner support base is really needed to ensure the adoption is sustained. Partners do many things, they enhance the runtimes touch points, they embrace and support the community driven events, they produce work around's or components to enhance both the tools and workflow but overall partners are the investment capitalists whom have pegged a stake in the ground and stated "we need this runtime to succeed more than the folks whom make it!" - trust the partners, as they will be the ones whom push the runtimes development teams to do better - they demand better and aren't forgiving should one come up short.

Conference Circuits
A Conference circuit is much like the community piece, but it's more of a meeting point in which partners, developers & designers are able to meet with one another, exchange business ideas, tips/tricks and haggle with the runtime makers to get better footing on a new way forward in their approach that touches on all of the above. These are also points in time, when the new stuff is usually announced and is where most of the heavy investment is put, to ensure that it becomes a marketing channel all can rely on in terms of getting a message delivered fast and within context.

Services
You hear a lot of buzz words associated to services (Web 2.0, SOA, Software+Services etc) these are all in a nutshell a cloud of technology in which RIA Producers are likely to leverage when they either build professionally or in the "prototype" stages in life. Services for example like Twitter could be used to trickle announcements out to the community about a subject, but it's all done with pre-existing architecture. The trick for the runtime makers are that it must be agile enough to talk direct or via proxy to such services with minimal amount of coding possible.

Services are a great ally to the RIA eco-system, it provides an existing remote tools to leverage and with RSS/REST/SOAP/AMF etc all becoming normalized services today, one ideal goal is to have the runtimes themselves talk directly to such protocols with ease.

Distribution
A wise man once told me, there are three types of lies: A lie, Damn Lies and Statistics. Yet they do work, and so distribution can be a funny thing. It can be purely a perception thing or it can be a mathematical equation to illustrate depth of a runtimes install base.

It's also not just about how many sockets are installed, but it's more to do with how many more are likely to be installed and at what rate are the installs likely to happen. It furthermore is a subject in which one asks "where are the runtimes installed and how" overall, many questions are derived from the word Distribution.

A potential recruit will factor in two things:

• Where are we today?
• Where are we tomorrow?

A correct way to asses this is to look at the above in depth with questions like:

• How big does the community look (as they will obviously drive distribution)
• How many partners are in the room ( as they will obviously drive adoption/distribution but also pay for it in some cases - money speaks volumes).
• How easy does it first look to produce a RIA? (if the ease of use is there, then its likely to occur faster)
• How well seeded do the RIA tools look? (The runtime distribution isn't always the only point of call, look at where the Development/Designer tools sit in the market today, and how accessible is it to these folks should they wish to produce a RIA tomorrow)
• Who is using the Runtime? (Not just how many, but what influencers out there are using it).

Thought leaders / Influencers
Lastly, these are the ones that make it all look easy. Usually an Evangelist or Community Influencer are typically these folks, as they can produce an example use of the technology that makes people pause long enough to consider the technology's strengths and weaknesses. It also can then inspire others to push the metal rivets on a runtime further and so, a thought leader is essential. These folks should then be rewarded (except if they are hired to do that) by the partners, runtime makers and community for their effort(s) as this helps motivate these folks to continue to do more, to change the conversation about RIA for better or for worse.

I usually call these folks "Indispensable Hero's" as every community needs them, the ones whom will champion the cause and be capable of going toe to toe with the Runtime development team on a subject that has such depth, it could end up changing the way the runtime will work in future generations.

A great example of an influencer would be Robert Scoble & Twitter. He used it quite heavily and in turn the degrees of influence helped twitter forward in terms of adoption. If you have the right amount of influencer(s) you can change the conversation quite rapidly.

Conclusion
We also need to show we are having fun with the technology, a RIA Producer is typically someone whom is enjoying using the technology as technically speaking, it can be a painful experience to sit between the Web and Desktop, so in turn there is an element of fun.

I say, invest in RIA for today, as tomorrow you will be better off. I wouldn't stop at one brand either, I would pickup as many as possible as interoperability is vital to a runtimes succession, so in turn you may be quite capable of mashing two or more runtimes together.

Sitting in a conference (WebOnThePiste.com) here in New Zealand, reflecting on my previous day where Nigel Parker (NZ) and I were invited to be apart of a Panel discussion with our Australian Adobe colleagues on "RIA & The Future".

I wish it was filmed, for not only because it would of captured the gorgeous scenery of Queenstown - New Zealand, but because it was probably one of the best RIA conversations I've had in quite a while as all 4 of us get RIA ( yet each of us have a product story to tell that's different to one another, but the concept held overall).

The question put forward to us was quite a hard one to respond to (choosing wording carefully etc).

"It's 2009, the web has grown, and RIA is in full swing, what does a typical website look like on this day, 2009".

We all had our piece, Adobe raised some valid points, about user experience and ensuring rich content is re-mastered to suite the RIA paradigm. I agreed with a lot of their points and they are quite valid.

My thoughts however settled around "Unified View over Disparate Systems" (something a friend taught me many moons ago). In that, the forward momentum for RIA is about two simple rules, Content and Context.

Content is important, it's a commodity we trade with day in day out online, we need to ensure we can reproduce a variety of content and deliver it to as many marketing/channels we can with minimal overhead and without delay.

Yet, content on its own is useless - it's just large packets of data being pushed in a direction. That is until context plays a role, context gives you conversation. Context gives you experience and it's the piece that helps produce a successful RIA.

RIA in general (no matter if you choose Flash/AIR/Silverlight/WPF) is essentially about ensuring the content is aggregated in a way that puts such content into the right context, in that addressing a user's probable pain points through a sensory engaging experience.

This is what it's all about, getting content into the hands of those whom need it, through simple, painless execution and using as many sensors a human being is willing to donate via a computer or device.

Content isn't king, context is.

Yet, what's an example of this. I look at the Airline demo that is used to demo Silverlight. I choose this for a number of reasons, but mainly because its taken a lot of basic features within Silverlight and doing quite a lot with little. It's got a basic functionality associated to it, in that let's assume the content is coming from an aggregated live data center. I am a user, and I need the ability to travel from Brisbane, Australia to Queenstown, New Zealand. Personally couldn't care what airline goes there, but I need to be there prior to the conference starting.

This in turn provides context to the content, I need to get from A to B, but I understand that there will be connecting flights, from multiple locations. In turn, I find what I think is the shortest route or bypasses main airport hubs like Sydney, Australia (trust me, trick to travel is move away from hubs, less Airport nightmares are likely to occur).

It empowers me to visually see my potential paths of choice, it also enables me to focus on timing and lastly it could provide pricing (insert usability discussion here later). Overall, it's taking a massive amount of data (content) and distilling it down into solving (context) my pain points (time + schedule - price).

I could offer more examples of this concept, but Context is King, Content just fuels Context.

Sitting in a conference (WebOnThePiste.com) here in New Zealand, reflecting on my previous day where Nigel Parker (NZ) and I were invited to be apart of a Panel discussion with our Australian Adobe colleagues on "RIA & The Future".

I wish it was filmed, for not only because it would of captured the gorgeous scenery of Queenstown - New Zealand, but because it was probably one of the best RIA conversations I've had in quite a while as all 4 of us get RIA ( yet each of us have a product story to tell that's different to one another, but the concept held overall).

The question put forward to us was quite a hard one to respond to (choosing wording carefully etc).

"It's 2009, the web has grown, and RIA is in full swing, what does a typical website look like on this day, 2009".

We all had our piece, Adobe raised some valid points, about user experience and ensuring rich content is re-mastered to suite the RIA paradigm. I agreed with a lot of their points and they are quite valid.

My thoughts however settled around "Unified View over Disparate Systems" (something a friend taught me many moons ago). In that, the forward momentum for RIA is about two simple rules, Content and Context.

Content is important, it's a commodity we trade with day in day out online, we need to ensure we can reproduce a variety of content and deliver it to as many marketing/channels we can with minimal overhead and without delay.

Yet, content on its own is useless - it's just large packets of data being pushed in a direction. That is until context plays a role, context gives you conversation. Context gives you experience and it's the piece that helps produce a successful RIA.

RIA in general (no matter if you choose Flash/AIR/Silverlight/WPF) is essentially about ensuring the content is aggregated in a way that puts such content into the right context, in that addressing a user's probable pain points through a sensory engaging experience.

This is what it's all about, getting content into the hands of those whom need it, through simple, painless execution and using as many sensors a human being is willing to donate via a computer or device.

Content isn't king, context is.

Yet, what's an example of this. I look at the Airline demo that is used to demo Silverlight. I choose this for a number of reasons, but mainly because its taken a lot of basic features within Silverlight and doing quite a lot with little. It's got a basic functionality associated to it, in that let's assume the content is coming from an aggregated live data center. I am a user, and I need the ability to travel from Brisbane, Australia to Queenstown, New Zealand. Personally couldn't care what airline goes there, but I need to be there prior to the conference starting.

This in turn provides context to the content, I need to get from A to B, but I understand that there will be connecting flights, from multiple locations. In turn, I find what I think is the shortest route or bypasses main airport hubs like Sydney, Australia (trust me, trick to travel is move away from hubs, less Airport nightmares are likely to occur).

It empowers me to visually see my potential paths of choice, it also enables me to focus on timing and lastly it could provide pricing (insert usability discussion here later). Overall, it's taking a massive amount of data (content) and distilling it down into solving (context) my pain points (time + schedule - price).

I could offer more examples of this concept, but Context is King, Content just fuels Context.