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February 20, 2005
Jesse on the New Web User Experience
My colleague Jesse James Garrett has an essay on the new web user experience platform he's dubbed Ajax. Don't let all the boxes and arrows in the diagrams overwhelm you -- the essay is clear in spelling out how it works and what it means. The nub (or gist) -- Ajax serves as an intermediary between the browser and the server, and while we typically think of intermediaries as making things take longer, here, it's just the opposite. Ajax sends stuff to the server only when needed, and much of the time it can handle the request itself, providing for more the immediate interactions and feedback we've been seeing in new web applications. Additionally, when Ajax determines that it needs to go to the server for data, it does so in such a way as to not interrupt the flow of the user's experience.
Anyway, Jesse's essay is great in how it brings together a lot of the discussion around this new application interface approach.
Posted by peterme at February 20, 2005 01:57 AM
Comments
While I fully buy in to this appraoch, I find that there still is a pretty major technical limitation. As far as I can tell, if you're not calling you're own server, you're in a world of hurt. And he support for simple gets and posts using xmlhttprequest or whatever don't seem nearly as simple as they should be.
Posted by: pb at February 20, 2005 12:59 AM
A great example of Ajax in action is Ta-da List. I'm not sure why JJG didn't reference this in his article.
Posted by: Randy at February 23, 2005 07:22 PM
Well if Dowdell passed up the opportunity, maybe I shouldn't even say it, but...
Flash Remoting has been giving us this "new application interface approach" for several years now. I know, I know- part of the whole point is that Ajax uses "open" technologies. But as soon as you start requiring Javascript, the argument against requiring Flash isn't so strong.
Okay, as you were...
Posted by: Jed Wood at February 23, 2005 11:39 PM