What is a Rich Internet Application?

The more software experiences become like the natural world the more users are pleased with those experiences. One of the most powerful, understandable, and universal concepts in computing is the idea of a desktop containing files and folders. Users embraced this metaphor in their software because it modeled their natural world experience.

There is a paradigm shift underway. In this shift, developers are creating user interfaces which more closely model the natural world. Since 2002, the term used to describe these types of software applications is “Rich Internet Applications”, or RIAs. Technologies like Ajax, Flex, Silverlight, Adobe AIR, and JavaFX are growing in popularity as this shift to RIAs gains momentum.

But what is an RIA? Answering that question is like trying to answer “What is a tree?” You may be able to identify an RIA or a tree with certainty when you see one, but coming up with an exact definition can be very difficult. In cases like this, the best one can do is to identify some of the fundamental characteristics that the term encompasses.

When you break down the phrase “Rich Internet Applications”, you find that “Internet” and “Applications” are well understood. It’s the “Rich” aspect that makes RIAs interesting, and it’s the “Rich” aspect that requires a fuller explanation. Essentially, a Rich Internet Application is capable of delivering a rich experience to the user. It is the richness of the experience that is often enhanced by making software that is more natural – more connected, more alive, more interactive, and more responsive.

Connected

We are all connected. On this relatively small planet we all have many things in common. We communicate with one another via many different methods, in many different languages, sometimes easily and sometimes with difficulty. Likewise RIAs are built on a network that connects us all - the Internet. RIAs use this network of billions of connected pieces to help us communicate - between each other and between systems, sometimes easily and sometimes with difficulty. And like each of us, in some scenarios RIAs need to be able to work when disconnected from the Internet.

Alive

Movement and the passing of time are critical to our experience of beauty and the emotional reaction we have to it. Watching waves continuously crash on a beach is an experience which fills us with life. Similarly, we would not sit and watch a beautiful sunset for very long if it never changed. In RIAs, we create rich experiences by modeling the movement and beauty we find in the natural world. Smooth sliding transitions, zoom effects, soft blurs, drop shadows, and rounded corners are elements of RIAs which help make software feel more like the natural world. Beauty is often simple and never overdone. Software that feels more alive evokes an emotional response from us. That emotional response can help to improve our overall satisfaction with the software. RIAs should feel alive.

Interactive

When people communicate they interact — sometimes physically, sometimes audibly, and sometimes visually. Interaction is how we transmit and receive information. The richness of an experience is heavily dependent on this interaction made possible by our senses. RIAs facilitate physical, audible, and visual interaction. Many new devices are allowing for more natural methods of physical interaction. Multi-touch interfaces like tablet PCs and media players are becoming more common because users want to interact with software like they interact with objects in the natural world. Many more software applications are also adding video and audio capabilities, and some of these applications support bi-directional multimedia interaction. This allows users to interact visually and audibly in the context of an application. Imagine filling out a form online and, if needed, being able to interact via webcams with someone who can help you complete the form. Applications which embrace interactivity to that level are helping to bring natural world interactivity to software experiences.

Responsive

In the real world when people interact with each other or with objects like rocks and trees, those things typically respond quickly. If I kick a rock it immediately moves, unless it’s a big rock in which case my foot immediately hurts. If someone speaks to another person they expect a timely response. At a baseball game, you can see scores whenever you want, just by looking in the right place. Too often in the world of software people are forced to wait for their computers to respond. Whether due to network connectivity issues, processing limitations, or other problems, software too often makes us wait. Most web applications leave users waiting for at least four seconds every time the user clicks on something. With many applications the wait times can be significantly longer, even on a broadband connection. Imagine what an everyday conversation would be like with that latency. Real-time streaming, high performance client side virtual machines, and local caching mechanisms are becoming in integral part of RIAs because these technologies reduce latency, increase responsiveness, and make software feel more like the natural world.

Natural Software Experiences

All kinds of software applications — from ERP business applications to word processing applications — are embracing the characteristics of what we now call Rich Internet Applications. This move is happening because users intuitively want to experience software like they experience the natural world.

Rich Internet Applications are proliferating because they are more connected, alive, interactive, and responsive than yesterday’s software. In ten years nearly all software will be what today is called a Rich Internet Application. But in ten years it will be only natural to just call it “software”.