Following the extremely positive reaction by prospective clients at the Jordan METS 2009 Expo, an Al Hilal Bank member, who visited Cleartag’s Interactive Booth in Jordan requested that this experience and technology be incorporated for the 2009 Dubai Motor Show.

About Cleartag:

Cleartag is an interactive agency that specializes in building and sustaining solid online brands and services.Cleartag offers complete web design, web development and online marketing services.

Contact:

Basma Adou, Business Development Manager
Cleartag
Tel. 961 1 971 871
http://www.cleartag.com

RFID technology allows users to physically control Cleartag’s beta website using different sets of icons that represent colors, sounds, and portfolio products. This unique experience attracted a high volume of visitors ranging from government entities including the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology to Educational Institutes, and a host of public and private companies – they’re all interested in technology innovation and advancement.

About Cleartag:

Cleartag is an interactive agency that specializes in building and sustaining solid online brands and services.  Cleartag offers complete web design, web development and online marketing services.

Contact:

Basma Adou, Business Development Manager
Cleartag
Tel. 961 1 971 871
http://www.cleartag.com

Adobe Flex

Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform.

Adobe Air

Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is a cross-platform runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application.
 

Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft Silverlight is a programmable web browser plugin that enables features such as animation, vector graphics and multimedia that characterizes rich Internet applications. Version 2.0, released in October 2008, brought additional interactivity features and support for .NET languages and development tools.

SUN JavaFX

JavaFX is a software platform for creating and delivering RIAs that can run across wide variety of connected devices.
The current release (JavaFX 1.2) enables building applications for desktop, browser and mobile phones. TV set-top boxes, gaming consoles, Bluray players and other platforms are planned.

Extending Capabilities:

JavaScript Libraries and Toolkits:

-         DOJO: The Dojo Toolkit offers rapid, modular development with great tools to test and optimize production performance, with no compile step. http://dojofoundation.org/#tab-DojoToolkit

-         Jquery: JQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. http://jquery.com

Standards and Concepts

-         HTML 5: This latest specification evolves HTML and its related APIs to ease the authoring of Web-based applications. http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/

-         Semantic Web: the Semantic Web is the extension of the World Wide Web that enables people to share content beyond the boundaries of applications and websites. It has been described in rather different ways: as a utopic vision, as a web of data, or merely as a natural paradigm shift in our daily use of the Web. http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Main_Page 

 The next post will compare the challenges of the different RIA platforms.

What is your preferred RIA building platform?

UI Fluidity: faster, smoother rendering and response time:

HTML websites are page-based, a new page has to reload every time the visitor request new information.

RIAs display the information without page reload, which results in faster responsiveness, can help keep the user focused and engaged, and allow for a smoother transition.

Comparison of flow in HTML and RIA

• Advanced Server Side Communication

In general each web page requires download using HTTP GET request. RIA uses asynchronous communication for faster responsive user interface bypassing the paradigm of loading web pages. RIAs use XMLHTTP Request for client-server communication.

• Presentation Richness:

This is one of the most important driving forces of using RIAs. Internet started as a medium of transporting documents and information, its infrastructure lacked the interactivity and richness of desktop applications.

However, with the widespread of broadband, increased time spent online, and the integration of the internet in business and marketing process, innovators developed technology for a richer user experience.

RIAs can deliver sophisticated interactive, graphics and multimedia enhanced applications.

Screenshot of picknik.com RIA

• Support for Connected and Disconnected States

RIAs can be browser or desktop based. The table below, from adobe.com, shows a comparison between RIAs in the browser and on the desktop. Desktop RIAs can work in offline mode and synchronize with the server when connected.

Browser RIA Vs. Desktop RIA

• Workflow Intelligence

RIAs can optimize the workflow in an enterprise to enhance the business process and productivity.

Brian Wick, director of LiveCycle at Adobe Systems says: “RIAs are especially suited for complex, multistep processes, consolidating multiple tasks into a seamless, individualized and visual user experience.

RIAs help BPM overcome one of its greatest challenges: the gap between an organization’s ability to automate processes and users’ readiness to participate in them. “

The dynamic data visualization in RIA can aggregate data from different sources in a dashboard. Employees can view and manage the information based on their roles.

Anatomy of RIA from an Adobe presentation

So, the first post is an overview about RIA:

The term was coined by Macromedia (now Adobe), when they introduced a major update to the Flash platform. The concept is to offer a Rich User Experience (RUE) that is beyond textual content and basic interface applications.

Tad Staley, Adobe Consulting said: “RIAs combine the reach of the Internet with a rich and compelling user interface that provides greater level of satisfaction and success in a user’s web-based interactions.” Initially RIAs were delivered mostly through browser plugins and extensions.

Rich Internet Applications

The term now encompasses a wide set of standards, frameworks and implementations.

RIA Components

RIAs, if well done, can offer users a more engaging experience.

What do you think of RIAs?