O’Reilly: Inside RIA

The rapid growth of RIA technology into the lives of every day people just a few years ago has carried both the usability and user experience industries to a new high in popularity. The success of software (particularly on the web) has driven both of these terms into our vernacular, and yet they are still often confused or thought to be synonymous. This post is meant to help those new to the field or unfamiliar with the intricacies of design to understand the differences between the terms.

Maybe I'm not very smart (don't answer that!). Possibly it's because I got my Graphic Design degree almost 20 years ago. Or maybe it's because most of what I've learned about UX design is geared toward eLearning, where the...

This is an excerpt from Designing Social Interfaces. From the creators of Yahoo!'s Design Pattern Library, Designing Social Interfaces provides you with more than 100 patterns, principles, and best practices, along with salient advice for many of the common challenges you'll face when starting a social website. Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone share hard-won insights into what works, what doesn't, and why. You'll learn how to balance opposing factions and grow healthy online communities by co-creating them with your users.

Advanced Flash Tactics or AFTs are techniques that come from deep within the Flash Art Of War, the oldest Flash military treatise in the world. Each AFT is designed to be quickly digested, usually only taking a few minutes to get up and running, and contains valuable information you can directly apply to your next Flash campaign. In this AFT I will go over - Photoshop for Developers.

We applied two simple criteria to identify the 50 most usable RIAs: Number 1: Does it adhere to the 10 basic usability principles? Number 2:Is it really rich? Developing a product with Ajax, Flex, or Silverlight doesn't inherently make it rich. A usable RIA will embody these six principles: Make it Direct, Keep it Lightweight, Stay in the Page, Provide an Invitation, Use Transitions, React Immediately.

Designer-developer workflow (D-D workflow) in conjunction with Rich Internet Applications (RIA) has become one of the most talked about buzzword in the Flash community in the last few years. It created a lot of debate and uncertainty on how designers and developers were going to work together. Now that Adobe Catalyst is public (since the release at the Adobe Max conference last year), and that we have had a chance to play around with the tool, I believe it’s time to open a discussion on how the direction the D-D workflow should be heading based on my experience. In this article I will talk about how Flash Catalyst (FC) should be used to allow designers and developers to work together.

I thought I would take some time to talk about some of the special considerations that you have to take when creating and maintaining RIAs for sites that have a national audience. While these can be considered good general practice, at a certain tipping point they become indispensable for the health of your system.

In this two part screencast I show some of the neat new features of the Flash Catalyst Beta 1 available on labs.adobe.com. I also demonstrate some good practices for preparing a file in Adobe Illustrator and how to keep yourself organized in Catalyst.

In a world that is overly saturated with technology and the ever so present visual clutter of messages trying to vie for our attention we, as Designers and Technologists must embrace the "Art and Science" of the experience. As we look back over the course of the last several years in the Rich Internet Application (RIA) market we begin to see some patterns emerge. Patterns and languages circling around the idea that true change has, and always will, come from the delicate balance between Art and Science.

Very often the layout and design process of rich Internet applications is detached from the actual application development itself. The application layout is developed from scratch for every new application or designers generate the layout independently. While this is certainly...

Design can be a huge stumbling block for developers coming to the RIA world. Here are a few tips on how I started tackling this hurdle.

I stumbled upon an NPR interview called “A Movie’s Look, From Toilet To Villain’s Lair.” An interview with award winning set designer J. Michael Riva. It was a fascinating look into the life of the Hollywood Set Designer and how they interact and connect with Producers, Directors, and ultimately the audience. The, sometimes, over-the-top profession where telling a story is all about making it believable for the rest of us.

The design, (which includes the look and feel, user experience, and information architecture) of an application can often be the determining factor in the overall success of the application. Given this level of importance we would like to know how...

"Chaos in the world brings uneasiness, but it also allows the opportunity for creativity and growth" -tom barrett As global markets and economies are shifting and rearranging businesses must have the ability to quickly and efficiently adapt to this ever...

This is an introductory post into the UX Revolution. In this series I will talk about the changes that RIA development is going through from an experience design perspective. I'll touch on everything from applications like Flash Catalyst to best practices in the XD process. Enjoy!

Efflex is a set of designer effects for Adobe Flex created by Stephen Downs (aka "Tink"). Stephen presented Efflex at the recent Flash on the Beach conference and has a background in building applications for the Flash platform. In this entry I'll talk a little bit about what Efflex has to offer and what sets it apart from other effects libraries.

A gallery of applications comparing Flash and Silverlight is both fun and enlightening! See Flash and Silverlight applications doing the same animations side-by-side and see the source code as well!

Google chose to launch its Chrome browser with a comic book about the browser, among other things. In this entry I talk about the book itself, its value as a piece of information design, and a little about the book's author, renown comic book artist Scott McCloud.

Duane Nickull has another new episode of Duane's World posted and this one includes two interviews. One of which is with the founder of this company Tim O'Reilly! Here is Duane's description of the episode. This episode of Duane's World...

Ted Patrick just posted a screencast from Mark Anders where he gives a great overview of the roadmap for Flex 4 aka Gumbo , Flash Player 10, Degrafa and Thermo at 360 Flex.