Designing Adobe AIR applications - Which Usability Guidelines to follow?

Question

Adobe AIR has enabled us push the boundary for creating Rich Internet Applications(RIA) outside the browser fence. Some companies have differentiated such applications as Rich Desktop Application (RDA).

We have usability guidelines for Web, Desktop and RIA applications separately. But since, Adobe AIR has enabled us to create desktop applications using web technologies(HTML, Java script, AJAX, Flex, AS..), this genre of applications doesn't seem to fit in any of the above categories.

So my question is : a. Is it correct to differentiate AIR applications from RIAs, since AIR apps live in user desktop, and users will have a different mental model when using a desktop application as opposed to applications on browser?

b. What are the usability guidelines that needs to be followed when creating applications for Adobe AIR?

Answer 1

Usability guidelines should be a function of the context in which the application is used, not the technology upon which it is built. If you have usability guidelines for desktop applications, then (since AIR provides resources allowing a Flex application to run on a desktop), the Principle of Least Surprise would dictate that it should follow the same guidelines as apps written in .NET, VB6, C++ Delphi etc. for use as a desktop app.

The more interesting question would be how the guidelines for a Flex app written for the browser would differ from normal Web guidelines, given the greater granularity of user control it provides; but that's not what this question is about.

Answer 2

I tend to follow Apple's Human Interface Guidelines when developing AIR apps (even down to the amount of padding around elements, etc). Even if you don't use them to the letter, they're definitely worth a read:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/userexperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/chapter_1_section_1.html