My reply to Anthony Franco on the Future Of Rich Internet Applications

The next challenge is to develop Rich Internet Applications which are easy to use for the "common" user.

This user is accustomed to standards of interfaces in current (Windows) applications. Each Usability analist can tell you how a webpage should look like (navigation on top or left, go easy on flashing banners, what do colours mean etc). When RIA's are used more and more the interface standards are not defined yet, and espacially Microsoft will have a problem there because you can design WPF in so many different look and feels. Adobe's Flash (Flex) for sure has a great interface standard now, but still: how you should design the application itself isn't sorted out properly yet.

I think in the next year we will see a lot of different interpretations and then... perhaps... real Usability guidelines will develop.