Why Web Apps?

A Web site consists of a collection of Web pages, as in a book or a brochure. Designers spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to keep your audience informed of the context in which they find themselves on your site. It’s relatively easy for people to get lost the moment your site gets at all complex.

One of the big disadvantages of Web sites is that they are monolithic. If you need something to change on a page in response to a user’s actions, you have to redraw the entire page. This disrupts the smooth flow of the user experience and reminds the user he has moved to someplace different from where he just was. But that’s a basic Web paradigm that’s been with us since the first days.

If you look at a Web application like the award-winning The Protector Network that just earned us the New Media Award for Excellence in Web Design, you’ll see that it behaves more like software you’re used to using on your desktop. Windows open in place. The main window stays in view so you always have an anchor for where you are in the application. (The screen shot in the upper right of this page is taken from one of our CIG projects as an example of what we mean.)

There are many other differences between Web sites and Web applications. Drop me a note and I’ll send you my evolving white paper on this subject. No cost or obligation, of course.