I’ll be speaking at BayCHI next week…
User Interface: The Future of the Web is not the Past of Windows
Bret Simister and Sarah Allen, Laszlo Systems
Wednesday, July 7, 6:30pm
This event is co-sponsored by the Web Interface BOF and the Struts User BOF. The target audience for this presentation includes both web interface designers and web application developers.
A general consensus is emerging: The page-oriented HTML web is reaching its limits as an application platform, and the time has arrived for a foundation that supports more application-like experiences, preferably based on XML. But what does this application-like experience consist of? Is it simply the ability to deliver Windows-like applications into a web browser like Swing, but based on XML? Or is it something more?
In this presentation, Bret Simister and Sarah Allen of Laszlo Systems describe what Laszlo believes is the next step in the evolution of web UI. This expressive, flexible user experience extends what we’ve learned on the web a UI that is a combination of application functionality, content, and branding, implemented via markup language. Bret and Sarah will demo what Laszlo describes as the “cinematic user experience,” and how its XML language, LZX, is designed to support the creation of these advanced, rich applications.
Sarah and Bret will show how designers and developers can collaborate to build great applications that are scalable, modular, and maintainable, and how these teams can combine their core strengths to create the best possible user experiences using the Laszlo Presentation Server.
Sarah,
I commented on one of your previous posting on this theme and you didn’t respond. My comment is relevant here as well so if you have the time I’d appreciate hearing your response.
I think one of the biggest challenge you will face with Laszlo is the fact that it is opaque to deep linking. You are essentially creating a walled garden of navigation within the prevailing context of a dense thicket of HTTP/HTML. This is of course the inherent problem with Flash and why it will never gain much traction.
A fundamental implications of HTTP is that it works best when everyone buys into the shared (yes, mediocre) UI mechanism of linking. This is the “good enough” principle at work again.
For example I visited Marc Canter’s blog at http://blogs.it/0100198/ and noticed the soundblox and photoblox Laszlo widgets. Schematically they represent two “island” traversal hierarchies that don’t allow me to link to an individual photo or individual track. So I can’t send a link to my buddy to check it out.
Do you have plans in the future to address this?
Cheers,
Douglass Turner
voice/sms: +354 895 5077