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For a better user experience - AJAX

At local.ch we make quite some use of techniques today best known under the name of AJAX. The main motivation to do so was that web applications built with the default options of HTML are plain and don't really enjoy using. I guess the best example is the drop down selection for large lists of items.. (aka the Country Selection). Different approaches to extend the feature set or improve user experience on HTML web application (Java-applet, Active-X, Flash, DHTML, XForms, Web Forms 2.0, ...) has come up since the invention of HTML forms - and now finally one of them (more precise: a combination of them) has the magic mix to make the cut.

Reasons (top of my head):
  1. build on existing and well-known technologies (Javascript)
  2. easy to copy & paste
  3. easy to add into an existing site
At local.ch we made use of AJAX to:
  1. reduce complete reloads of the web page. e.g. for paging and refining the result set or look-up large lists
  2. reduce user typos by recommend possible valid values in input fields e.g. the where and when search fields
  3. and of course the map
Some of the guys that are working on local.ch are going to share their knowledge at the upcoming AJAX Conference (June 20-21. 2006, Zurich, Switzerland). I'm going to be there the 2nd day (in listen only mode).

Update: Photos of the event on Flickr

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Posted by Cedric on Sunday, June 11, 2006 at 6/11/2006 11:24:00 AM |

Hi Cedric,

Like you said, it is a combination of those technologies that takes the user experience to the next level. One particular combination is XForms + Ajax. Or I should say: XForms on top of Ajax. The benefit for the user is a better experience, and for the developer the benefit is to be able to deliver this better user experience without having to write JavaScript, using standard and declarative XForms.

Erik wrote a paper that he presented last month at XTech in Amsterdam: XForms: an Alternative to Ajax?

And PresentationServer is an open source (LGPL) implementation of XForms on top of Ajax. There is quick peek see the XForms screencast.

Alex

Posted by Blogger Alessandro Vernet | June 14, 2006 1:08 AM  

@Alex - thx for the links - interesting approach.

I personally favor Web Forms 2.0 - but unfortunately it didn't yet got enough momentum from the user agent developers (Opera being an exception).

Posted by Blogger Cedric | June 16, 2006 6:49 PM  

Hi Cedric,

Is there any particular benefit you see with "Web Forms 2.0"?

Alex

Posted by Blogger Alessandro Vernet | June 21, 2006 3:06 AM  

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