Design assumptions
Users with nothing more than a Web browser and an Internet connection can use INSPIRE's services.
One of INSPIRE’s primary goals is to observe and log user activities as completely as possible for the cross-cultural study. Since it is difficult to monitor actions on the user's host machine, all nontrivial activities are conducted through the INSPIRE site.
Current trends in net-centric computing are towards pay-per-use software: programs reside at their developers' home sites and are automatically downloaded and executed whenever the user needs a particular piece of functionality. This induces a tendency towards an architecture in which the server (INSPIRE’s home site) plays a central role, regardless of the structure of communication needs.