How RIA Can Transform Businesses

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are web-based applications that have a much more robust feel and functionality to them than standard web-based applications. They provide greater stability and seldom crash as they are implemented with sophisticated technologies even though they are basically web applications. With RIA, user engagement is greatly increased and this means a higher retention of customers and users within the organization. Better retention and loyalty of user’s leads progressively to improved market presence and wider reach. RIAs also provide improved business processes with technology that is easier to handle with greater options for the user interface and usability.

Traditionally HTML and the accompanying technologies that build standard web pages provide a very static feel with user experience and interaction being pushed to the back seat. With the advent of RIA based user interfaces and technology, these traditional pages are being pushed to the limits of their capabilities. Leveraging RIAs allows web applications to have desktop application usability inside a web browser!

Technically speaking, Rich Internet Applications (RIA) is web applications that have many of the characteristics of desktop applications. These applications are accessed via a site-specific browser, or a browser plug-in, or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines. The tipping point for RIA’s is that they typically provide a "no-refresh" look on the principle of HDuX - High Definition User eXperience. Users sometimes need to install a software framework using the computer's operating system before launching the application, which typically downloads updates, verifies and executes the RIA.

RIA - BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

Why Use an RIA?

Rich Internet Applications offer a rich, engaging experience that improves user satisfaction and increases productivity. An RIA can use a wider range of controls to improve users’ interaction with the interface, allowing efficient interactions, better error-management, feedback and overall user experience. In a nut shell, the need for RIA is to –

• Develop new kinds of applications
• Engage, guide and listen to visitors
• Create compelling web sites with audio & video
• Simplify typically complex processes
• Provide information clearly
• Lower click penalty
• Reduce bandwidth costs

RIA’s do not exert any additional load on the back end servers or database but instead the technology platform ensures that the only change is the way the data is presented to the user. This is where the enhancement of user experience and transformation of processes takes place.

Benefits of RIA:

The benefits of using RIA are plenty and these advantages are summarized below. These advantages highlights how RIA helps change the way businesses move forward:

• Rich Applications: RIA applications provide improved UI behavior normally not obtainable with standard browser based web-applications. This means greater interactivity for the user and higher engagement.
• Highly Responsive: The interface behavior is typically significantly more responsive than those of a standard web browser that must always interact with a remote server. This ensures that there is a higher response time and more information is presented in a shorter span of time.
• Client/Server Balanced: The demand for client and server computing resources is better balanced, so that the web server need not be the workhorse that it is with a traditional web application. Better utilization of resources means greater productivity.
• Asynchronous: The client engine can interact with the server asynchronously — that is, without waiting for the user to perform an interface action like clicking on a button or link. This option allows RIA designers to move data between the client and the server without making the user wait.
• Network Efficient: The network traffic is significantly reduced because an application-specific client engine is more intelligent than a standard web browser and has the capability to decide what/which data needs to be exchanged with servers.