What truly makes an RIA “rich”?  Is it the ability to provide interactivity, or is it the ability to find a new way to present information?  Is it a better mashup of existing APIs or is it a compelling design?  I can’t say I know the answer, but I can say the journey to find it is an interesting one.

I find myself in a place I often do, at the interactive design phase of a project - that giddy phase after all the due diligence has been done and we’re looking for that next great app.  The coders are itching to get started, the client is anxious for the alpha builds.  And here I sit trying to convey all the information and ideas I’ve aggregated into a unified yet flexible interface.  And just like last time, it once again is for a client bigger than I find comfortable, and feeling as though there is no real answer.

So some basics…it’s an internet application - a “rich” internet application - designed to deliver a massive video library of both live and on-demand content.  It should also be viral and embeddable.  It has to be lightweight, but it also has to deliver as much engaging interaction while maintaining its efficiency in delivering video (and of course advertising).

So what is it that would make this application truly rich?

I had an interesting discussion with my significant other last week after explaining the dilemma of the project.  She and I have very divergent opinions about internet applications.  Ever the tech-nerd and business strategist, I always look for the efficiency, for what will monetize, for what will create the best business scenario.  For her, a designer, it’s the utility, the engaging atmosphere that takes precedence over eveyrthing else.  I’m Windows, she’s Mac (literally…in our household it’s Dell versus Apple).  I’m Windows Mobile, she’s iPhone.  I’m text, she’s typography, i’m bits, she’s color.

In any case, she explained to me that the reason that she preferred the iPhone over her last “piece of junk” (a Windows Mobile phone) had little to do with that the applications themselves did anything different, it was that the interaction with the phone simply made it more engaging and thus made it more apt to (continue to) use it.  And that was they key, she said, “make it engaging and they will stay.”

Now, my partner already knows a thing or two about traffic and the importance of keeping eyeballs on the content.  She runs her own online store that within 3 months became profitable and runs a blog that pulls in exponentially more traffic than this soapbox.  More than that she understands how to keep her customers interested, happy and loyal.  She demonstrates for me the simplicity of the iPhone app design - not of the unit as a whole, but of the generally consistent visual nomikers and motions shared by all the apps.  She points out the vast difference in providing search boxes that actually instruct, detailed breadcrumb trails that actually do something, and the fact that the system as a whole delivered information efficiently but in a fun way.

Any of the 100+ students that have mucked their way through my UCD classes will attest that I harp on two major things in UX design - being efficient and engaging (not principles I came up with myself - thank Jesse James Garrett for that definition).  So what happened that I so easily forgot these principles in trying to lay out this design.

Her comments and demonstration got me thinking.  And thinking.  Which led to some quick drafts, a few poorly drawn sketches, some minor storyboards.  And now I here I am trying to synergize that last little piece of science that will turn my Frankenstein from idea to life.  Through the morass of mapping mashups, social network hooks, video controls, playlists, advertising, viral components and colors, somewhere lies the answer.  Will this one be it?  Will this design be the rage or will it flop?  Hard to tell at this point but I think the ideas are good ones. Coaxing them into coalescing into something bigger than the individual parts is the goal.  Let’s see if this truly ends up rich.