I often refer to “websites and web applications” in Loud Dog’s marketing material and in general when discussing the web. What’s the difference between these two very similar things? At a very high level, websites are static while web applications are interactive. Of course, anything on the web is necessarily interactive, because of the nature of the hyperlink. However, the user isn’t doing anything. So, perhaps a better way of putting is that websites are browsed while web applications are used.

We’ve designed and built a number of each. Some recent examples of websites are Mark Logic, Venatus Capital Partners and most of Funambol. Although some of these are more complex than others (both marklogic.com and funambol.com have hundreds of pages), visitors to them don’t use them to do anything. Venatus.com has an application component, in that it has a Content Maintence System that allows the firm to keep the website up to date, but visitors don’t interact with that.

Some recent examples of web applications include Squadra Piloti and Final Table Poker. While both of these do have “static” areas, they have significant amounts of visitor interaction. On Squadra Piloti, you can create an account, trade cars, etc. On Final Table Poker, you can create an account and create a fantasy poker team.

Differences in Design Requirements

The two types of projects have significantly different design requirements: websites are designed to communicate information, and need a focus on information architecture and information design, while web applications are designed to allow vistors to accomplish tasks, and need a focus on interaction and UI design. Of course, neither focus is exclusive.

Differences in Technical Requirements

The two types vary even more when it comes to technical requirements. A website may require only front-end development (XHTML, CSS and Javascript), while a web application requires back-end (server-side) engineering to store and manipulate stored data.

A caveat to this is that front-end technology is becoming increasingly application-like in its development, particularly with the increased use of JavaScript widgets and JavaScript/XML (AJAX) interactions.

I think I could write a lot more on the blurring of these lines, particularly with the spread of AJAX, but that’s for another time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Blog, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.