Comments on: Ajax Usability Concerns

By: Lenen

Lenen — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:04:42 +0000

Paradigm shift is indeed a nice alternative and for me easier. The comment about SEO and AJAX is not making sense, if you build it right; every searchengine will appreciate it and take all your AJAX stuff for granted.

By: Car Hire In Reykjavik

Car Hire In Reykjavik — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:44:29 +0000

Hi! Ajax is a great technology and there is not doubt about that but its not a seo friendly language so i would suggest avoid it as far as possible.

Regards
Hermann

By: Bart F

Bart F — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:12:37 +0000

Nice article. I think ajax should be used to ENHANCE the user experience.
Which means that everything should work if a user chooses to disable javascript or has a browser that does not support it.

Regards,

Open Source Pixels

By: web programming

web programming — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:25:53 +0000

AJAX is not at all search engine friendly so it should be avoided.

By: abhi web designer

abhi web designer — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:19:56 +0000

Hi! Thats really a nice post. Search engines can not read AJAX and its better if we avoid it if we are targeting search engines.

By: superjumbo

superjumbo — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:45:11 +0000

In SEO scenario Ajax is little bit tough. Great post, keep it up.

By: Fred333

Fred333 — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:23:34 +0000

Ajax is tough to use when you are taking about SEO. Great article though.

By: navot

navot — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:00:29 +0000

I would like to draw your attention to another alternative which is a paradigm shift for AJAX front ends. One should be aware that I am not, and do not pretend to be objective, never the less I believe that one can judge for himself. Visual WebGui is an open source rapid application development framework for graphic user interfaces of IT web applications. VWG replaces the obsolete paradigms of ASP.NET in both design-time and run-time which were designed for developing sites, with WinForms methodologies, which were designed for developing applications. Thus enabling designer that was designed for application interfaces (WinForms designer) instead of a word documents (ASP.NET designer). This provides the developer with an extremely efficient way to design interfaces using drag and drop instead of hand coding HTML. Visual WebGui is an AJAX frame work that doesn’t expose logic, data or open services on client requests and therefore is not as vulnerable as common AJAX solution.. VWG presentation layer is de-coupled and instead of standard browser it can, and will run Silverlight.
NO!!! Visual Webgui is not!!
Not a component library – It is a complete revised approach to developing web applications.

not a JavaScript generator – It runs on the server controlling the browser using a small static JavaScript kernel.

Not for developing sites – It was designed to provide for developing IT web applications GUIs.

Not a closed / locked-in framework – It has many extensibility features, which allow integration of legacy resources (ASP.NET or DHTML resources) and the development of custom controls and behaviors.
Worth a look at http://www.visualwebgui.com,

By: Michael Zuschlag

Michael Zuschlag — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:54:40 +0000

Re: Washington Post tabs. I would use animation only in desperation given it may distract or delay user action. What’s the point of AJAX if it slows the user down?

The problem I see with the Washington Post tabs is that they don’t look like tabs. The labels are colored and underlined like links, so no surprise people expect them to work like links. Controls with distinctive effects should have distinctive appearances. In the case of tabs, the tab for the current panel should have the same background color as the panel (white, in this case). A border comprising the tab and panel is necessary so it appears as a contiguous object. Three-D visual cues can be used to make the current panel and tab appear to be in front of the others. In other words, a tab should look like a tab in a thick-client app.

That’s a general good rule of thumb: Copy the appearance of thick-clients controls. Most of these appearances have been tested and proven effective. Those that haven’t are at least familiar to many users. If you really think you’ve a better way than thick-clients (and surely there are better ways), then plan to test it. Don’t make it different just to look different.

Oh, and I’m suspicious about the use of tabs at all in this case. What sort of categories are those? How is a user supposed to know if a comic is “washingtonpost.com” or “web comic”? Aren’t there web comics that are also editorial? Where should a user look? I’d think the one thing the user knows is the name of the comic they want to read. I’d bet they’d be better off with a single scrollable pane of all comics sorted alphabetically.

By: Nathan Selikoff

Nathan Selikoff — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:21:50 +0000

Hello Tara,

Thanks for the report.

SWFAddress (http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/) is a free library that is a great help in solving some of the usability concerns you have mentioned in your post, specifically linkability, searchability and site statistics.

Also, I like the way GMail and Remember The Milk highlight your last action, giving feedback that something indeed has happened, and allowing you to undo it.

-Nathan