I recently started thinking about quality factors that one might use to measure a user interface in order to compare what’s possible technology platforms.

UI Quality Factors:

• Richness
• Efficiency
• Cost
• Usability
• Flexibility
• Scalability

Applications with Generated UIs

Example: MOSS, Cognos, Pega etc.

Pros:

• Cost

Cons:

• Richness, Flexibility, Scalability, Usability, Efficiency

Traditional Web Applications

Example: ASP.NET, PHP, etc.

Pros:

• Scalability

Cons:

• Richness

 

Traditional Desktop Applications

Pros:

• Richness, Efficiency, Usability

Cons:

• Scalability, Cost

Rich Internet Applications (RIA)

Pros:

• Flexibility, Scalability, Usability, Richness, Efficiency

Cons:

• Cost