Are you currently building web-based applications? Are you tasked with adding more interactivity to your web apps? Do you want to learn interaction design skills geared towards adding interactivity and richness to your web-based solutions?

Information spaces on the Web are becoming increasingly filled with complex interactions. Even simple transactional solutions like shopping carts and document management systems are becoming more complex with richer desktop-like interaction models. Today’s web designers and information architects need access to disciplines like interaction design and software design to create powerful and successful web applications. For example:

• The developers at a major financial institution are working on a mission-critical application that will be rolled out to more than 6,000 financial consultants, but they have no idea whether a Rich Internet Application (RIA) is the right solution. And if an RIA is the right choice, they’re unsure of what technology to use.
• The development team for a hotel reservation system would like to migrate their simple application to an RIA solution. Where should the developers start? How do they avoid making the same mistakes that other developers have already made?

To help designers solve these types of problems, expert web application designer David Malouf has created a seminar exploring some of the most important issues surrounding the web’s most sophisticated applications. In this information-packed seminar he will give you a solid introduction to RIAs and demonstrate the value RIAs can add to your web application.

Ajax, .Net, Java, Flash? This choice between technologies make it very confusing for developers to decide how best to implement RIAs. Over the course of the seminar, David will provide an in-depth deconstruction of applications using AJAX and Flash technologies, including Yahoo Maps, Gmail, and Zimbra.

To learn what it takes to create successful RIAs, you will:

1. Examine the factors to consider when deciding whether an RIA solution is right for you. David will discuss what factors contribute to a successful RIA for both the users and the internal organizations.
2. Walk through and deconstruct dozens of RIA’s. You will be exposed to a broad set of applications with both successful and unsuccessful uses of RIAs.
3. Choose the most appropriate technology for your RIA. David will share the many RIA technologies available to development teams, including Ajax and Flash. You will learn the advantages and disadvantages of each technology from both a user experience and a technical perspective.
4. Learn the principles of Interaction Design to help you create more successful web applications. You will learn to move from a “page” by “page” approach for applications, to a page of contextualized interactions
5. See how to leverage design patterns within your organization. You will learn how to leverage design patterns for your RIAs to quickly and efficiently add value to your web applications.
6. Get an introduction to design practice and theory. You will see how designing and prototyping multiple solutions for your applications will often lead to a single better solution.

If you want some great ideas to tackle your biggest application development problems, this seminar is for you.

An Invitation

How will you use what you learn in this class? What topics would you like to cover? Tells us now on the class wiki.