AJAX: Your Take
July 06, 2005 | 
42 Comments
AJAX or, Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is probably one of the most talked about (hyped) developments in Web development this year.
In essence, AJAX is a group of somewhat related technologies that allow for new (and arguably exciting) ways to design and develop user interfaces. In other words, it’s just a suite of cool tools.
I’m curious to hear what my readers think of AJAX. But first my own take.
My take on AJAX
When I first began reading about it, admittedly just after JJG coined the term “AJAX”, I had that sinking feeling of, “Oh shit! Now here’s another thing I’ve got to learn.”
(And, for the record, despite the backlash, I’ve got no problem with the term “AJAX” or the fact that Adaptive Path marketed it.)
After I stepped back a bit, I realized that much like Flash, AJAX is just another bunch of tools that I can pick up (or hire someone who knows) when, and more realistically if, I’ve ever got a problem that AJAX can solve. I did a bit of dabbling and found it not all that complicated, and actually rather powerful. So as a suite, it’s something I need to keep an eye on. Thing is, I’ve not found any compelling reason to use it on my projects yet.
However, I feel that there are many Web developers out there who are going to jump on the AJAX bandwagon and ride it to places they probably don’t need to go to. I’m hoping it doesn’t end up like Flash where people place more importance on it than it should have and begin to use it just for the sake of using it.
How long before we have a “AJAX is 99% Bad” article?
Wait, we’ve already got that.
Bottomline? AJAX offers us some nice options when it comes to user interface. The yellow fade technique, to site a similar example, is neat, simple and useful. However, as with any technology it should be used only when it’s needed. Well, unless you’re just messing around with it of course. Start with the problem, then apply the solution and all that.
Now, what do y’all think about AJAX?
Filed under: Web Development
Keyword Tags: ajax adaptive+path Web+development
Comments
1. Ben said:
I couldn’t agree more - I have spent the past few days developing a user interface for an admin system to be used only in Safari, and I still haven’t found a compelling reason to use it.
Applying technology to a problem, and not the other way round, was how web development dug itself out of the Flash-crazy hole it was in, hopefully it wont need to again.
Posted on July 6, 2005 09:33 AM | #
2. Andrew Hume said:
The Yellow Fade Technique doesn’t need Ajax technologies - but it is often employed alongside them.
Posted on July 6, 2005 09:34 AM | #
3. Jeff Croft said:
Personally, I think AJAX probably deserves the hype it’s getting. There is no question that it will be misused and even abused, but the fact is that being able to cull information from the server (be it a XML file, a database query, an HTML file, a server-side script, etc.) without reloading the page really is a big deal. There are valid accessibility concerns, as well as valid “do it just because it’s cool” concerns. Hell, my own blog uses some AJAX that is very poorly done in terms of accessibility. But, the technology is quite useful and once we all figure out how to use it best, it’ll be everywhere.
For example: why do I need to wait for the page to reload in order to see my comment after I click “post”? :)
Posted on July 6, 2005 09:35 AM | #
4. Egor Kloos said:
I’ve implemented it on my blog and quickly found that the technique has serious limits. The interface design aspect to keep your eye on is how the remote script alters the state of your page. The things you want to add have to be independant and cause as little context shift in the current state. Bookmarking higlights this problem as wel as using sessions to maintain document flow in web apps.
As with many solutions that are this powerful it quickly becomes clear to keep you guns holstered until needed instead of shooting from the hip because it’s the cool thing to do. Lord only knows what kind of damage you may end up doing.
Posted on July 6, 2005 09:35 AM | #
5. Oliver Zheng said:
Ajax, to me, seems like the best thing that’s happened to usability and interface design. If coded properly (unobtrusive Javascript), the interface would be versatile with both script enabled and disabled.
Posted on July 6, 2005 09:41 AM | #
6. Dan Mall said:
I see the concern, but I don’t think that AJAX will be as abused as Flash. Part of the abuse comes from the fact that it’s so easy to use. AJAX has a slightly higher learning curve, which will make it harder to misuse for a beginner.
Posted on July 6, 2005 09:56 AM | #
7. kevin said:
It’s a great tool, but it’s been around for quite sometime - it just didn’t have a catchy moniker. I think Outlook Web Access was one of the first to make use of the technique extensively. There are some awesome uses for it - the “About your Apple product” widget on their support site is elegant and I recently recommended it’s use for an enterprise chat application. I think if nothing else, it helps get people to think more deeply about interaction design outside of the constructs of a browser/refresh paradigm (and outside of flash).
Posted on July 6, 2005 10:26 AM | #
8. Ryan Brooks said:
I think that Ajax will make things much easier for us in the future. As the possibilities of Rich Internet Applications get broader, more and more tools are available. Backbase (http://www.backbase.com/) is an Ajax engine that gives it’s developers a heck of a lot of power, while still adhering to standards. Others, like Flex and the open source Laszlo engine, are becoming a little bit too much to handle.
I think that Ajax and other technologies should be taken lightly, until Browsers become better-equiped to handle the slam of information that is seen with SPI (Single Page Interfaces). Also, we need to think about the user - simply put, the user is trained to have to wait for a page to load, or information to be posted to a server. Ajax and other technologies are changing this.
The problem that I forsee, as an RIA consultant and developer, is that many will want to all but replace existing applications when they’re for instance web enabling a CRM system. Ajax should augment, not replace.
Posted on July 6, 2005 10:38 AM | #
9. kevin said:
“SPI.” I love it.
MDI- and SDI-based interaction models aren’t new in the traditional application space and I’d venture to say that, other than new accessibility considerations, the core mental models aren’t that different either.
Posted on July 6, 2005 10:48 AM | #
10. Dougal Campbell said:
Like most technologies, labeling it “good” or “bad” depends on how it’s used. We’re still at the front of the Ajax wave right now, and we’re seeing a lot of “Ajax for the sake of Ajax” uses (i.e. people are tinkering with it, even for interfaces that don’t need it).
But as more developers wrap their heads around it, we’re also starting to see some best practices emerge. I’m seeing a lot more examples of “unobtrusive Ajax” now. These things tend to go through their own Darwinism. The bad applications will die off, and the good ones will survive and spawn better apps as developers begin to splice together the best ideas.
Posted on July 6, 2005 11:01 AM | #
11. pawel said:
I like to use it in little forms on websites, like “subscribe/unscribe newsletter” form that doesn’t need to reload the page and displays a message instead of form field after it was submitted. Ofcourse without javascript or xmlhttprequest support it is degradated to the “classic” way of form submission.
The best thing about AJAX is its name. I made some experiments before the name was known and I suggested one PM to use xmlhttprequest in some project where I was sure it was a good solution. He said it’s risky because it’s not very popular. One moth later he called me and asked “do you know AJAX? can you make AJAX scripts?” :)
Posted on July 6, 2005 11:30 AM | #
12. Tom said:
I’m currently using it on an internal web app we are building. We have page level “help tips” system. If you turn it on, certain items will trigger (on mouseover) a help tip. This tip is pulled via AJAX essentially (although I use innerHTML - horror of horrors! not the DOM at this point) and plunked into a div based on a unique id the help item has. This is all done with unobtrusive JS and a simple SPAN tag with an ID around the items you want help tips on.
Is it good? Don’t know yet. We’ll find out when it launches how well it is received. It was a late addition to the app and missed the usability testing.
It was pretty neat putting it together, we’ll have to see how it goes.
Tom
Posted on July 6, 2005 11:47 AM | #
13. Mike Rainey said:
I view AJAX as essentially the The Force. It has a good side and a bad side. How the implementer chooses to utilize it makes it good or bad.
I use it on my site to update what I’m listening to in WinAmp every 30 seconds or so. It sits at the bottom of the page unobtruseively, and if you weren’t looking for it, you’d probably miss it.
Posted on July 6, 2005 12:34 PM | #
14. Jeff Parker said:
I could take it or leave it, I don;t really have any use for it. I have to agree with Snook on his blog and you need to have a real understanding of what AJAX is. Also it has been around for a great many years. It was just never coined or labels as Ajax so to speak until recently then it became a buzzword.
http://www.snook.ca/archives/000376.html
The yellow fade technique? Isn’t that just plain DHTML and not really Ajax
Posted on July 6, 2005 12:44 PM | #
15. Johan Svensson said:
I’m very interested in Ajax and the rather impressive stuff you can do with it. It very neatly solves the “how to update parts of a page without putting it in an iframe or something” problem that I’ve been having.
I’ve been meaning to learn Ruby, and by pure coincidence I stumbled upon Ajax and started to have a look at it at the same time that I got myself a nice project to write in Ruby on Rails using some Ajax stuff to enhance it.
Posted on July 6, 2005 12:58 PM | #
16. Keith said:
re: yellow fade techinque – Sorry, my bad, I was intending to use that as a similar user interface example. Not necessarily as an example of AJAX. Didn’t mean to confuse anyone.
Good discussion so far. Seems like most of y’all are in agreement that it’s nothing to get too hyped up about, although it seems you’re all much more clued into what it actual is than I am.
Like I said, if I come across a problem that I think AJAX can solve, I’ll dig further in. ;)
Posted on July 6, 2005 01:06 PM | #
17. Matthew Pennell said:
Until the accessibility questions have been adequately answered, it’s difficult to see a valid use for it. Sure, it’s fine for handling an alternative form submission (like the newsletter sign-up pawel refers to), but if you want to use it as an update-without-reload integrated part of an interface extremely careful thought is needed (unless you don’t care about accessibility, of course).
That said, forgetfoo is my favourite Ajax-ified site - it handles article and comments display and all the header stuff too. Very cool.
Posted on July 6, 2005 01:11 PM | #
18. Travholt said:
I look at Ajax as a means of communicating with a server without reloading the page. Obviously, this has its advantages in areas like live searches and web applications like Backpack.
So there are, as I see it, two ways of using it: Either make small, useful improvements to a user interface, or make applications that you couldn’t make without it.
The former means you’ll have to make sure everything works without Javascript too, only slightly less nifty.
The latter is, in my opinion, much more interesting. Web designers can use knowledge they already have and make applications in an environment they know intimately, instead of learning new programming languages – provided, of course, that using Ajax is suitable for the job. Take Google Maps, for example: It could’ve been made as a standalone application, but why should it, when “everyone” has a browser, and the browser does the job very nicely? You get instant portability and availability.
I’ve already had several reasonably good ideas for applications that would thrive in a browser, powered by Ajax. Now if I just had the time …
Posted on July 6, 2005 01:30 PM | #
19. Brad Wright said:
I think there’s a danger that, in all the Ajax hype, alot of the good work that has been done recently in bringing accessibility to the forefront of web design will be lost. How many Ajax applications don’t degrade gracefully? Most of 37Signals recent offerings certainly don’t.
Google, another big player in the Ajax market, does with Gmail, but fails to with Google Maps.
We can’t lose sight of how important degrading applications are. Jeremy Keith of Adactio fame (and a recent book on Javascript) makes this point:
http://www.adactio.com/journal/display.php/20050308163812.xml .
Apart from above worries, I think Ajax is a great tool to propel web applications another few steps up the ladder of usability. I certainly prefer it to Flash - if only because the HTML gives me more accessibility and SEO options.
Posted on July 6, 2005 03:54 PM | #
20. Jough Dempsey said:
I think the best use of Ajax out there right now is Netflix - both through rating a film and a new feature, where when you add a new movie to your queue you can drag it higher up into your list, or rearrange your queue right from the sidebar, and it updates the server in the background. It’s much more convenient than having to change the sort numbers and then submit.
Posted on July 6, 2005 04:41 PM | #
21. Justin P. said:
I have to agree that AJAX could create trouble in the wrong hands or when overused. Sure, there is a learning curve, but I don’t see the curve any different than somebody learning Flash (or similar). It’s just different. With suites coming out left and right (like Rico or the AJAX on Rails thing) to make developing AJAX driven apps easier, we will undoubtedly see overuse.
re: Netflix, I think their web developers are awesome and I really want to know who they are! I was excited to see them convert to a CSS-based layout last year, then with all this AJAX talk in recent months I was delighted to see Netflix jumping right in without hesitation. That reorder your queue thing they have is very cool.
I think AJAX is best used when applied to existing, fully functioning apps. It’s very easy to add a behavioral layer on top of your pages which applies all the needed front-end AJAX functionality. If the server-side system is written properly it should be very easy to plugin AJAX calls to existing methods…works flawlessly with/without Javascript.
Posted on July 6, 2005 05:17 PM | #
22. Justin Perkins said:
> I don’t see the curve any different
> …
> It’s just different.
Uh yeah, you know what I mean ;)
Posted on July 6, 2005 10:22 PM | #
23. Ryan Brooks said:
I’d just like to share an additional Ajax resource that I haven’t heard a lot of talk about:
Some positively splendid demos.
As well, this project http://qooxdoo.sourceforge.net/ has some interesting RIA potential.
Posted on July 7, 2005 05:39 AM | #
24. Jason Landry said:
I think Ajax is a great way to offer nice little touches to a user interface. A perfect example is on-the-fly validation of a username. If a username is unavailable, Ajax can inform that user as soon as they type it in. The trick with Ajax, as with anything, is to be smart about it and weigh the consequences.
Posted on July 7, 2005 10:17 AM | #
25. Small Paul said:
Definitely a good addition to JavaScript. Bravo Microsoft. Arguably not that new though, as Peter Paul Koch pointed out: asynchronous calls to the server has been do-able, and done, via hidden frames for yonks.
Glad to see we’re all not getting too excited about this particular hammer.
Posted on July 7, 2005 12:23 PM | #
26. JasonTC said:
Does anyone feel the need for browser support of JavaScript filtering at the site level? Lately I have noticed quite a few JS enabled Flash ads taking up 33%-50% of the page on a load until I click the “X Close” button.
I have been tempted to disable JavaScript…but with all of the great new AJAX (or whatever you want to call it) apps. out there, I keep it enabled.
Any ideas how to get the best of both worlds?
Posted on July 8, 2005 08:17 AM | #
27. dan said:
I think Ajax is a great option. But with like any javascript you use you just need to make sure your app works without it(like you’ve always done). I wouldn’t compare AJAX to Flash, Flash is a tool, Ajax is a methodology.
The way I see it, is the smae as css. The people that haven’t learned to master css at this point are really feeling the pressure. Ludites tried to bring it down but it prevailed. Now with Ajax, there’s no need to learn it, but if I master it and I make it “bulletproof” ;), I’ll be that much more ahead. (if that’s where you want to be)
Posted on July 9, 2005 09:41 AM | #
28. Tom Trenka said:
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“I think there’s a danger that, in all the Ajax hype, alot of the good work that has been done recently in bringing accessibility to the forefront of web design will be lost. How many Ajax applications don’t degrade gracefully? Most of 37Signals recent offerings certainly don’t.”
I think you need to understand that there is a marked difference between a full-on rich application and a set of documents with some interaction (i.e. what most people understand the web to be)…when creating an application (regardless of whether deployment is via a browser or not), there are definite choices made as to what will and will not be supported; and more often than not, the point of the application itself makes that determination. You mentioned how Google Maps does not degrade; but by it’s very nature Google Maps is a very visual application. Should that sacrifice the very point of the application in the name of accessibility? If so, how would you even try to make that work?
We need to be *very* careful about determining the main points of importance for an application, especially a web-based one. If you’re talking about something that is purely (or close to purely) informational, then sure, accessbility is a strong point. If you’re talking about something that is very visual in nature–or requires a high amount of user interaction–then the choice to not be accessible is moot.
Of course, when some tech becomes more feasible (say, like Google Maps Mobile with GPS synchronization with your cell phone), the rules of the app change…
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