What is a website you revisit? Chances are it isn’t a static HTML page that still hasn’t been updated since the 90′s. Not that that web page would be bad (it could sill server a very good purpose), but if you are going to have a great site based on Web 2.0 design principles the site your thinking of will have a more dynamic layout.

The reason you revisit a website is normally because it has updated, there is new data, you have found a purpose to return and all of this is intended to generates a rich user experience that makes you want to return. There are however ways of getting ahead of the crowd and making that user experiences better.

10 years ago you might have been tempted to use animated graphics on a page with some fancy DHTML coding to make you think ‘wow, that’s cool’, however technology has advanced and so should your website. Today a site will use AJAX, PHP, .NET, HTML 5 to create a richer experience for the user. These standards allows a developer to load content that refreshes automatically, embed videos, images, upload data, etc.

The next level up is creating a Rich Internet Application. Now you might be thinking application in the sense of a program you find under the menu in your computer but I’m talking about a Rich Internet Application that uses Adobe Flash, Java or Microsoft Silverlight (the three biggest players in the area). Before you can actually view something in Flash, Java or Silverlight you will need to download and install the plug-in. However once installed you will be able to download a small application on the website and run it in your browser. There are however downfalls in going this way. Silverlight doesn’t work in Linux, Flash doesn’t work on most mobile devices, Java can be problematic on some PC’s, etc which need to be taken into consideration.

So lets move on to some examples! There are plenty out there so I’ve just decided to to pick an example site from Adobe Flash, Java and Microsoft Silverlight:

Adobe Flash – Donnie Darko (the movie)

This one I might be a little Biased to as I really enjoyed the movie and when I discovered the website I was impressed. The website is based on flash and is a great example of a RIA (Rich Internet Application). It combines, text, video, audio and takes the user on a journey through the website. In fact it is a challenge the whole way through as information is provided through to you in short bursts, mouse clicks are hidden at times and you are prompted to put in passwords to open the next section (should you be clever enough to work it out from the information provided).

Java – Yahoo! Games

Yahoo! Games are based on Java. I’ll rephrase that. Most of Yahoo!’s games that you play online use Java. They have a wide range from poker, scrabble, pool to Bejeweled. This has created an incredible series of RIA which gives the user a Rich User Experience that keeps them coming back! I would suggest to give it a try, but I warn you that you may become addicted.

Microsoft Silverlight  - Silverlight.net Showcase

Silverlight is the newest of the three, however this doesn’t mean it hasn’t got any attention. In fact Stat Owl, has showed that Silverlight is slowly growing in market share. The showcase site itself is in in Silverlight, but it provides many examples (over 900) of websites that are using Silverlight. These range from MMORPG, public transport, geospatial imagery to dynamic bar graphs.

Let me know if you have any stand-out examples of Rich Internet Applications!