Ria Applications - Desktop vs web feel

Question

Hi guys;

I have seen web applications that have desktop look and feel (e.g those done with flex or extgwt) demo. I have also seen web applications (rich with ajax) that have web look and feel - e.g gmail . My questions is: which ones are more usable? and which ones are the future. I am not talking of websites here but applications, think accounting software or Human Resource management Software.

Regards

Answer 1

I think this is very general and it depends on allot of factors like:

• speed (those web looking tend to be faster)
• budget (those web looking are usually cheaper and quicker to implement)
• what the users expect, e.g. what they were used to before.
• company policy, branding, etc.

| and which ones are the future

Well, if I could see the future ... :). Maybe both? :).

There are valid arguments in favor of both approaches, so it really depends from case to case what solution is the best.

Answer 2

If there is one thing you can bet on, I think, it would be HTML and JavaScript. Nothing is more ubiquitous. Moreover, with HTML5 it looks like you should be able to do almost anything that the other RIA frameworks provide.