My Views on AJAX

AJAX isn’t new, but I haven’t really gotten around to expressing my views on it. For those that aren’t in the geek circle, AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. It’s used to build whole web sites in some cases (Gmail and dozens of other Web 2.0 sites) or to add bits of instantly-accessible functionality (Quick reply in vBulletin or Quick Edit in Invision Power board, My Pages at PCWorld.com, for example). AJAX uses existing technologies and languages to help create enhanced user experiences.

I think that some AJAX sites are well designed, like my favorite, Gmail. It uses AJAX as the basic foundation for the whole thing, so it’s either AJAX or the standard HTML version. Other sites (or products in some cases) rely on AJAX for doing certain – albeit important, like editing records in a CRM system – tasks, but don’t use it as the actual page rendering mechanism. Using that system, the AJAX-based feature might not really work sometimes. I can’t really think of anything off-hand right now, but I remember it happening at least once.

So the next time you use a Web site or service that uses AJAX (whether you know it or not), think about how the site acts. Can you do certain things without leaving the page? Do certain features perform really quickly? Does the site have to load (with an obvious message saying it’s doing so) before you can use it? If so, it’s run on AJAX, and may (or may not) provide a better browsing experience.