| Good and Bad Uses of Ajax |
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Most web developers will agree that use of Ajax has helped enrich the average users experience when it is implemented properly. But that often is not the case, with many developers making the wswitch over to Ajax it is all too often over used or used in ways which absolutely do not warrant its use.
I'm going to try to give a few examples of a good use of Ajax, and a few not so good. I will go easy on some of the 'bad' examples, as I, as a developer, do not like critizing others work. So without further ado, I'm going to start with perhaps the best known use to Ajax to the average user.
Good uses of Ajax Google Suggest (autocomplete): Google has had this little feature buried away in their Labs for years; it wasn't until the recently brought it to use in their Google toolbar, and subsequently in their main search. Another rather big example of the use of Ajax in eBay new bidding system, removing the need for the user to send synchronous requests to eBay server and having to wait for the entire page to reload in order to determine if their bid was successful. This serves an important purpose, and eBay has accomplished fairly seemlessly; (though initial data has shown no significant improvement in sales for eBay as a result of this new system). The last major example is Google maps. When Google maps was first released, it was a significant improvement upon the then leading software (mapquest). This improvement was due in large part to its principled use of Ajax in such a way which allowed the user to zoom in/out, scroll side-to-side/up-and-down. This was because instead of having the need to reload the page with every change the user desired to make, that same data could be fetched from behind the scenes using asynchronous requests. Until recently, Tahoo Maps also was using sychronous requests requiring the user to refresh the browser with every change; they are now also using Ajax now. I believe this is a perfect example of how not interrupting the user for reqests expontentially improve the users experience with the application.
Bad uses of Ajax Mouseover Advertisements: many advertising networks are now using mouseover ads on certain selected text to fetch related ads from an ad server based upon the text being moused over. This is a perfect example of a poor use of Ajax, not just because I dislike advertising, but because it completely interrupts the users experience of reading the page uninterrupted. Windows Live Shopping: Windows Live Shopping is Microsofts attempt at an interactive competitor for Google products. (and not only that, they have used bribery as its numer one marketing tool). My main problem with Windows Live Shopping is the fact that it seems to use Ajax just because it can, and its use really brings nothing new the table. All the features you can find in competing price search engines are (for the most part) in Windows Live Shopping, so it has all been done before Microsoft decided to come onto the scene. Microsoft seemed to be under the impression that just because they use a pure Ajax system, it would be enough to entice users away from its competitors. Early results say they were wrong. Real time updating widgets: Ajax has made it easy to develop widgets which update every 2 second to fetch real time data over the net. The only problem with this is that far too many site include these widgets on pages that they will almost never be viewed. All while using up bandwidth in the background by fetching data 99% of viewers of the page do not want anyway.
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