October 22nd, 2008

What the iPhone says about user experience

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 10:54 am

Categories: Experience, iPhone

Tags: Software, Apple iPhone, Tools & Techniques, Web 2.0, Management, Internet, Ryan Stewart

It turns out the iPhone is pretty damn popular. Those of us following the digeratiy scene could probably have told the analysts that but even these numbers are impressive. 6.892 million iPhones sold in the quarter for a total of 12.992 million and more importantly, it gave Apple a revenue boost to the tune of $806 million. Not chump change by any stretch. And what made iPhone arguably the greatest gadget of a generation? The user experience.

Sure the multi-touch stuff is great, and it adds, but the iPhone is a nearly flawless device from the silicon to the software. It’s exactly what most people want in a phone and it helped show that the vision of “one device that does almost everything” was actually possible. Some of that is good hardware engineering, but largely it’s due to software and how that software links all the pieces. Look at how easy it is to sync the iPhone with your music, photos, or applications. And how easy it is to purchase those things. That’s good software design.

When you nail the user experience, you go mainstream and you make a lot of money. Web 2.0 has given us a ton of great building blocks. Social networking, the web as a delivery mechanism, real time collaboration, the cloud - all of those things really started becoming realities during the Web 2.0 boom. So from a technology standpoint, we’ve established a good baseline. But in order to really make a difference you’ve got to put a better experience on it. That’s essentially the promise of rich Internet applications. And as more and more companies pour money and resources into design, you’re going to start seeing real, tangible dividends in terms of user adoption and revenue.

Web 2.0 came along and turned software on its head. The software business is having to rethink how it does things. And as part of that transformation, design and experience are taking center stage. With the plethora of design-centric software development platforms out there, it’s never been more fun and interesting to build software. It’s one reason why I’m excited about RIAs and also why it’s great to see the iPhone do so well. If you put the design time in, you are going to be more successful. Keep that in mind as you’re looking to build the new generation of software.

March 3rd, 2008

Infragistics releases NetAdvantage for Visual Studio 2008

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 10:24 am

Categories: .NET 3.0, Experience, Rich Internet Applications, Silverlight, WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation

Tags: Microsoft Visual Studio, Component, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, Rich Internet Application, Infragistics WPF Component, Looking Component, Ryan Stewart

In the world of rich Internet application components, Infragistics has a ton of experience. They’ve been building .NET components for a long time and they took very quickly to WPF. They announced this week that they’re component set, including NetAdvantage for WPF is compatible with VisualStudio 2008 so you’ll be able to use all of their components when you upgrade to Microsoft’s latest and greatest tools.

The Infragistics WPF components are quite good. They’ve got some data grid enhancements, a “ribbon-style” control that you can drop into your WPF applications and a good charting suite. They also have some good Silverlight components as Doug McCune noted when he went looking for Silverlight demos.

I think the RIA components market is one that has only just started to get off the ground. Good looking components are such a big part of the experience that as bigger and bigger companies start using RIAs, there will be a huge market for people building components. As with many things, companies are more than happy to buy a solution that fits their needs, so a diverse and quality component library is a welcome addition to any RIA platform.

October 8th, 2007

Interactive design: the next step for the CSS guru?

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:46 pm

Categories: Experience, Expression Studio, Rich Internet Applications

Tags: Web, Rich Internet Application, Designer, CSS, Scripting Languages, Software/Web Development, Web Development, Ryan Stewart

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how “traditional” web roles fit into rich Internet applications. One of the things that make browser-based web applications and RIAs so great is that the very nature of the web lends itself to being a jack of all trades. As a result, anyone can jump in and build pretty much anything. As the applications have gotten more sophisticated however, a division of labor has occurred and we see specialization for designers and developers. But what about the interactive designer? The interactive designer is kind of a cross between developer and designer. They’ve got to understand how things should be laid out from an aesthetic point of view but also understand how the application is supposed to flow and move between states. They shouldn’t be doing back end coding, but I think most interactive designers will be expected to be familiar with code and understand the development behind the UI. Tools like Thermo and Blend cater to the interactive designer, but in the RIA world there is a huge lack of interaction design talent. So where are we going to get it? I think CSS experts are going to fill the void.

I can remember spending a ton of time on sites like CSS Zen garden. The designs they created were great and it wasn’t until I took the HTML/CSS and tried to create my own that I realized how difficult it is to create good-looking CSS. You have to know the CSS tricks, be able to hand code (and essentially debug) HTML and CSS. But you also have to have an eye for how it all fits together. CSS has been great for the web and it’s been a popular outlet for technically-minded designers who want to move their inspiration online. These people are the perfect fit for the interactive designer mold in RIAs. They’ve got a great design sense but also have the skills to work in code and (most importantly) work within the UI constraints of the developer to create something awesome.

They’re used to working with web developers, so they understand the designer-developer issues better than most people. Give them tools like Thermo and Blend and I think they’ll really be able to grow into the role of creating applications as opposed to static pages. Undoubtedly part of the appeal of CSS is that it’s all based on web standards and many of the luminaries in the community are committed to that. But RIAs are becoming more open and more standards based, so I think interactive design is a natural next step for the CSS ninjas out there. They can focus on the challenges of user experience design instead of the challenges of different browsers rendering CSS incorrectly. They’ve got the knowledge, the design sense and the technical skills. Now the question is how do we encourage more of them to jump into RIAs.

August 17th, 2007

Rich, branded experiences pay dividends for advertisers

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 5:52 pm

Categories: Advertising, Experience, Rich Media

Tags: Advertisement, Brand, Rich Internet Application, Dividend, Advertiser, Ryan Stewart

Imagine a world where advertising is targeted and fun. That’s what I think about every single day when I use or build rich internet applications. Productivity applications are great but there’s also a lot to be said for engaging consumers and RIAs are a great way to do that. Any RIA you build for a user is basically advertising You’re advertising your brand and your content. In the New York Times today there was an article about how ads are becoming entertainment rather than interruptions. Welcome to the world of web experiences.

David Droga, executive chairmen at the Droga5 agency sums it up very well in the article:

“You put choice on the table, you change the whole game,” Mr. Droga said, adding: “Everything is about control. If an ad is interesting to you, you’ll have the conversation with the brand. If it’s not, it’s a waste of time.”

This is the appeal of consumer rich internet applications and why every single ad agency should be looking at them and innovating towards them. Right now it’s largely about creating a funny commercial. But humans want to be entertained and eventually advertising will get more sophisticated. The web, and in turn, rich internet applications, are a perfect medium. It’s all about the experience for the people towards whom you are targeting your brand. And you can target more than just he funny bone with RIAs. You can target the mind, the eyes, and the emotions all with great advertising wrapped inside an application.

Eventually I hope some of this stimulation moves into productivity apps and the enterprise. Making software more fun has always been one of my hopes but I want to make sure the fun doesn’t interfere with productivity. Hopefully we can watch and learn from the advertising world which has made a very profitable industry based on getting people to do something and enjoying it while they do. I’ll give Michael Jacobs from MRM the last word:

“I don’t think it is so much about putting entertaining commercials on the Web as it is about brands providing immersive experiences for consumers of which entertainment is a component,”

More info:
Beet.tv
Frivolous Motion

June 1st, 2007

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs sound excited about Rich Internet Applications

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 3:38 am

Categories: Experience, Rich Internet Applications, Rich Media

Tags: Desktop, Steve Jobs, Internet, Internet Application, Bill Gates, Web Browser, Ryan Stewart

I didn’t have a chance to watch all of the video from the D conference but I was pointed to part of the discussion in which Bill and Steve talk about software and I came away with the impression that both men were very excited about what the blending of the web and the desktop will mean for users. Bill Gates had the first quote I liked about leveraging the power of the desktop with the benefits of “the cloud”:

“It’s a matter of using that local richness together with the richness that’s elsewhere. As you look at the device that’s connecting to the TV set or connecting in the car, there are lighter weight hardware internet connections, but when you come to the full screen, rich, edit the document, create things…we’re nowhere near where we can be on making that stronger.”

(more below the video)

It was in a response to a question about whether or not the rich client was going to be important anymore and Bill gave an answer that fits very well with the RIA mentality. There are a ton of great things about the web and the cloud, but there are also great things about deploying rich clients to the desktop. For users, there are cases where being in a browser makes perfect sense, but other times, the richer, fuller, more complete experience that the desktop can provide is valuable. It’s not either/or. Steve followed up talking more specifically about the browser:

“People are figuring out how to do more in a browser, how to get persistent state when you’re disconnected in a browser, how do you actually run apps locally using apps written in those technologies so they can be pretty transparent about whether you’re connected or not. But it’s happening fairly slowly and there is still a lot you can do with a rich client environment. At the same time, the hardware is progressing to where you can run a rich client environment on lower and lower cost devices and lower and lower power devices.”

This is a quote that is extremely applicable today with the announcement of Google Gears. Browser innovation continues to be great and I think technologies like Silverlight and Flash really enhance what you can do inside the browser because you can create very rich, media intensive experiences inside it. But not only is the rich client still very powerful, the idea of mini-rich clients is becoming more important. The fantastic thing about RIAs is that they span everything from mobile devices to the desktop and take advantage of data in the cloud. In the video, Steve gives the example of Google Maps on the iPhone. Creating these great experiences and tailoring them specifically for the device is going to become more important. RIAs enable that and as the platforms get wider, we should be able to deploy these tailored experiences using the same media assets and very little code change.

Steve put it pretty well, so I’ll let him close:

“The marriage of some really great client apps with some really great cloud services is incredibly powerful and right now can be way more than just having a browser on the client.”

Yup, it’s a pretty exciting time to be a developer. Thanks to Jon for the heads up.

May 30th, 2007

Microsoft Surface could be a great Rich Internet Application platform

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 2:15 am

Categories: Experience, Microsoft, Rich Internet Applications

Tags: Ryan Stewart

I am very, very impressed with Microsoft Surface. I haven’t touched it and I don’t know all the specifics, but after watching the videos on the site and reading some other reports, I’m excited about what this means. Now, is it going to be affordable? Heck no. Is it going to work as well as we all hope it does? Doubtful. But Microsoft has done something extremely cool and at the same time enhanced the notion of experience in a huge way. I think this is very significant for RIAs.

Part of the big value adds behind any kind of Rich Internet Application is the experience. You’ll always hear things about how flashy graphics and bells get in the way, and in some cases that’s true, but when those extra bells and whistles come together to create a truly unique, compelling and usable experience, it makes a world of difference. Just reading some of the commentary on Surfacing shows how captivated people are by great experiences and great interfaces. We should be able to tap into that excitement through software and Surface is helping us think outside the box.

From what Robert Scoble says, this interface was built using Windows Presentation Foundation, which isn’t surprising. WPF was created for these kinds of experiences. We get some of this in Vista, but it really shines in Surface. I think the excitement around devices like Surface show how much potential there is for better software across numerous platforms. In this case it isn’t about breaking out of the browser, it’s about breaking out of the computing world as we know it and creating rich experiences.

May 28th, 2007

To browser or not? It doesn't really matter

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 11:40 pm

Categories: Apollo, Experience, Flash, Flex, Silverlight

Tags: Desktop, Web, Web Browser, Ryan Stewart

Rich Internet Applications have gotten a lot of great attention recently. The technologies and acronyms are blending together in a seemingly endless soup of technobabble. Part of that comes with any new technology and in the hyper-attentive world of the web people are quick to make judgments and even quicker to prognosticate the end of the world as we know it. Most recently I saw this in a post by Allison Randal over on O’Reilly Radar (although she isn’t exactly tearing down the walls, her post got me thinking).

The post is actually about LINA, an interesting technology that seems to mirror Apollo a bit in the ability to write one application that can be deployed across multiple platforms. But in the post, Allison speaks heavily about the death of web browser applications:

The wave of the future is not web browser applications. Instead we’re coming full circle back to desktop applications, but this time we’ve broken the old idea of single user silo applications with no connection to the outside world. The wave of the future is lightweight desktop applications with the same massively networked, Web 2.0 behavior we’ve come to expect from browser applications. iTunes is a classic example of this, with both an offline component available all the time, and a seamlessly integrated online component available when connected.

I agree with a good chunk of what she’s saying. I think I’ve been very clear about how important I think desktop development is. I think deploying applications in the browser tends to be inefficient and poorly implemented. The kinds of software applications that people are putting into the browser would be much better on the desktop.

But all that said, I think it’s important to realize that the browser still has a lot of life in it. Technologies like Flash/Flex and Silverlight are only going to become more important as the browser evolves. The browser is a lowest common denominator that has helped create a great deal of innovation and excitement about technology. Forgetting that is both shortsighted and generally a bad idea.

In the end what we should strive for are richer applications across the board. In some cases, the browser will be a great delivery mechanism and for richer experiences Flash and Silverlight will fit the bill perfectly. Other times, your application will require an experience that takes it outside the browser. When that happens, I think it will be very important to blend the good parts of the web into that desktop experience. Things like a quick install, familiar technologies, and a cross platform experience are all things we’ve come to love and expect from the web but that can be translated to the desktop as well. Ultimately it is that blend that will be invaluable to both desktop developers and web developers. The browser won’t ever go away, but if by making it easy to use the best experience for your need, we’ll maximize the utility for everyone; users and developers alike.

May 23rd, 2007

Did anyone complain about the graphics in Super Mario Bros?

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 9:52 am

Categories: Experience, Rich Enterprise Applications, Rich Internet Applications

Tags: Game, Graphics, There, Ryan Stewart

There’s an open thread going on over at Web Worker Daily that asks, do Rich Internet Applications matter to you. Anne Zelenka has some commentary about what she thinks of RIAs and makes the point I see a lot, that things like Gmail, and del.icio.us offer “more-than-acceptable” interfaces with a lot of power. For the most part the comments consist of people saying they don’t care about RIAs, they just want applications that perform the tasks needed. There’s also a bit of a groundswell for offline connectivity which is important to note.

But here’s the thing. I don’t want to take your productivity away. My idea of a good Rich Internet Application isn’t one that is all glitter and no substance. RIAs can be delivered inside the browser or they can be deployed on the desktop. The idea of putting a desktop like experience in the browser with RIAs is so that we can make them more powerful *and* easier to use. Make them sticky for the users and, god forbid, fun to use while being productive.

When Super Mario Brothers came out in 1985, we were all pretty blown away by the graphics and the experience. Those 8 little bits of plumber were really, really cool and no one was complaining about the graphics or the game. But did we stop there? Did we decide that Mario was good enough as a pixelated block man? No, and thank goodness. Mario got our juices flowing and thinking about how much further we could take this. Now we have games like Gears of War that look absolutely spectacular. We have games like Guitar Hero that are a blast to play. Why can’t our applications be like that? Why can’t we be productive and enjoy a great experience?

It’s not a zero sum game, I promise.

May 23rd, 2007

More validation that a rich experience is becoming a must

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 2:25 am

Categories: Experience, Rich Enterprise Applications, Rich Internet Applications

Tags: Experience, IBM Corp., Ryan Stewart

Great news from eWeek that IBM is taking a long, hard look at enhancing the user experience of its products. According to the article, IBM is placing a huge emphasis on a better experience in Lotus and across its entire product line:

“We’re reacting to market realities,” [Mike Rhodin, General Manager of IBM's Lotus Business Unit] said. “It’s a need.” Rhodin noted that with the changing work force, the user experience of a product can mean the difference between a company having to invest heavily in training or not.

There are huge economic benefits to adopting an RIA strategy. A great user experience isn’t the private property of Rich Internet Applications, but RIAs have helped jumpstart the trend because they make it so easy to create great experiences. They take the restrictions off of traditional HTML and browser applications so that the interface gurus can come in and have the experience implemented correctly.

By going with an RIA solution you’ll make internal users to your system more productive. You’ll spend less time training new people to use the system and ideally you will retain customers. The exciting thing for me is that it’s becoming the norm for companies to have great, RIA experiences in their customer facing applications. But the space is still new enough that you can stand out. The next crop of applications, things like Buzzword, are going to raise the bar. We’re going to see how much better experiences can be and that’s going to set off a ton of innovation in the Web 2.0 world.

I should try and find a time to chat with James Governor about how this might fit into IBM’s SOA strategy. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Thanks to Zee for the tip to the article.

April 10th, 2007

RIA summit: "Unleashing the Power of Rich Internet Applications"

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 11:43 am

Categories: Adobe, Apollo, Design, Experience, Rich Internet Applications, eBay, effectiveUI

Tags:

Adobe and effectiveUI are putting on a free Rich Internet Application Summit on Thursday, May 3rd, in Denver that I'll be a speaker for. While it's obviously targeted at Adobe products, it's going to be one of the first conference I've seen that focuses on the business side of Rich Internet Applications. There are representatives from Forrester, eBay, and Adobe as well as Anthony Franco, a managing partner at effectiveUI.

The agenda includes topics like the business case for Rich Internet Applications, what kinds of experiences you can create with Apollo, and how important user experience can be when delivering applications over the web or on the desktop. The final session is a panel with all of the speakers talking about the future of RIAs and how they'll affect software. I'm covering the Rich Internet Application ecosystem, so I'll be giving an overview of Adobe's technologies and where they fit. I'll be talking about mobile devices, the web, the desktop, and how RIAs can span all of those for the best reach.

As I said, it's a free event, so if you'll be in Denver on the 3rd of May, you should head on over and register. It runs from 8:30 to 2:00 and is being held at the Adam's Mark Hotel. Even if you weren't planning on being in Denver, it's a great place to take a trip, and this is as good reason to schedule a long weekend of skiing or hiking or just hanging out in the mile high city.