Boosting the Productivity and Usability of Web-based Applications

Edy Liongosari

The experience is as frustrating as it is common. You're ordering online. You choose the book you want, the address where you want it delivered, how you want it shipped and then you enter your credit card details. Before placing the order, you want to return to a previous page to make a change. You hit the previous-page arrow...and all hell breaks loose. You've lost your information. Or worse, you place your order, click the next-page arrow and realize you just unintentionally submitted the same order twice.

You've just encountered a major shortcoming of traditional HTML-based Web applications—a shortcoming that an emerging class of technologies is about to solve. Under most existing systems today, all the processing is done by the Web server (in this case, the online retailer's server) while the client (the Web browser in your PC) merely displays page after page of static HTML content. The more complex the application—like those requiring multiple pages to be accessed to complete a transaction—the more problematic the experience. The business of page-by-page refreshing of content is slow because most of the work is done by the server. As a result, the user's experience is limited by the Web browser.

Enter Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). A marriage of Web applications and desktop applications, RIAs overcome such limitations and provide far richer functionality by pushing more of the processing work onto the PC. Changing the way the burden is shared between the client and server opens up the potential for vast improvements in usability and productivity of Web-based applications. Think of RIAs as easily deployed Web applications that provide the same level of richness and responsiveness as desktop applications.

While some of the earliest RIA adopters are in the business-to-consumer arena, business-to-business applications will significantly realize the innovation's potential. One of the major handicaps in Software as a Service (SaaS), for example, is the limitations of Web browsers. Salesforce.com is leveraging RIAs to overcome those limitations and deliver a much richer experience for users that puts its software service on par with major players like Oracle.

A New Division of Labor
Although RIAs still are in the early adopter stage, the long-term implications for businesses are enormous. For one thing, in business-to-consumer applications, it enriches the customer experience while increasing the sophistication, responsiveness and reliability in electronic commerce applications. It also enables companies to offer extensive services that customers can perform remotely on their own computers, such as configuration and repairs.

These benefits extend beyond the realm of electronic commerce. Within enterprises, for example, many of today's enterprise applications come with two front ends: a Web-based front end for casual users that is easy to deploy but has limited interactivity, and a rich desktop front end for trained daily users that has to be deployed to individual users. With RIAs, these front ends can be combined—resulting in rich interactivity with ease of deployment and savings that could stretch into the millions of dollars for large enterprises while achieving high performance.

Beyond the Honeymoon Stage
That said, this is an innovation still in search of standards and scalability. Players such as Adobe, Nexaweb, Microsoft and various open source movements are propelling RIAs forward, and a handful of companies are successfully reaping the benefits of early RIA deployment. Yet despite the activity surrounding RIAs, the nagging fact is that it's both difficult and costly to build a Rich Internet Application that works well in a wide range of platforms. The frameworks for building RIAs are proprietary and come as browser plug-ins, Java applets or ActiveX controls, which require disruptive downloads. RIAs also require sophisticated Web browsers. And as with any new technology, there's a lack of skilled developers.

But the mainstream adoption of RIAs is inevitable. Many estimates have indicated that RIAs won't be in the mainstream system development until late 2010. As RIA technologies converge, they will create a larger pool of skilled resources to tap into and simplify the development process.

We believe RIA adoption will evolve in two phases. The first phase—available today—is driven by AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript + XML), a technique that breaks the synchronous nature of the click-and-refresh cycle in typical Web pages. The second phase focuses on enriching the user interface and will be driven by several vendors and open source initiatives like OpenLaszlo.

Seeing RIAs in Action
One way to see RIAs in action today is to compare Google Maps with MapQuest. Because Google Maps uses AJAX technology, users can easily and endlessly move around maps without constant refresh requests to the server. Google Maps uses RIA buffering technology to retrieve the map data incrementally. By comparison, MapQuest searches involve clunky page-after-page sequencing that retrieves the map data all at once. Google Maps therefore consumes 70 percent less network traffic than MapQuest while providing a richer experience to its users.

Other early adopters in the business-to-consumer space have already begun reaping the rewards of the technology. For example, MINI USA customers can configure their dream MINI Cooper on the company's website using RIA technology and watch their dream car unfold as they select their desired features. Many dealers have adopted the configurator as a showroom sales tool, sitting down with prospects in the dealership to design the MINI of their choice. The most telling statistic is that the conversion to sale for configuration leads averages 30 percent. Leveraging the strength of the online experience, MINI established an online owner's environment that more than 65 percent of its owners participate in. Furthermore, the site generates nearly 50 percent of total leads, serving as the company's largest generator of sales leads and demonstrating the power of RIA as a sales tool.¹ In another example, Best Western has achieved a 70 percent increase in performance and a 90 percent reduction in network traffic by using RIAs for its property management system.²

These companies are using RIAs to realize a key characteristic of high performance businesses: They are obsessive about winning the battle for the customer based on deep understanding of customer behavior and preferences, according to Accenture research.

¹ Macromedia, Inc., "The MINI USA website uses Macromedia Flash® to lap other car maker sites with a high-speed custom configurator," 2005.
² Nexaweb, "Best Western Deploys New Member Web Intranet to Over 4,000 Employees Using Nexaweb," June 28, 2004.

Enabling Software as a Service
In the B2B environment, an early adopter is salesforce.com—the company that pioneered the delivery of sales force automation and customer relationship management services over the Internet. Salesforce.com made such capabilities affordable and available to small businesses by hosting its service online and billing monthly, saving customers the cost of expensive software and support. This Software as a Service business model relies on delivery via Web browsers, which severely handicap salesforce.com's ability to provide a rich user experience.

Now with 300,000 subscribers, salesforce.com has turned its pioneering spirit toward the improvement of usability and functionality with RIAs. It uses this new technology to add a host of teamwork automation capabilities, including project management, collaborative calendaring, document management and team communications. Salesforce.com isn't waiting for standards, tools and mainstream development. By using RIAs for the front end of its business, salesforce.com ensures that it will continue to be the poster company for the innovation as a driver of the Software as a Service business model.

For salesforce.com and other RIA pioneers, getting a head start on the benefits of RIAs is worth the risk of experimenting. Accenture's continuing research into high performance has determined that innovation is a key characteristic of high-performance businesses. Companies that are putting RIAs to the test are getting a head start on the path to profitable innovation and, ultimately, high performance.