Donna Maurer have a nice article about Usability for Rich Internet Applications (via – Digital Web Magazine).
She list out the key features of typical RIA as;
- The user interacts directly with page elements (inline editing, drag-and-drop, panning a map)
- Part of a page is updated (instead of reloading)
- More detailed information is available on the same page (instead of on a new page)
- Feedback, confirmation and error messages are provided within the page