What is AJAX?
AJAX has been a buzz word in web development for some time now, but a lot of people don’t have a clear understanding of what it is. I’ll shed some light on the issue and break it down for you.
DEFINED
AJAX stands for “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML” and is a technique for creating interactive web sites/applications. So when a user clicks or types on a site things can change with out reloading the page. It makes things feel more responsive and more like a desktop program, than a web site.
EXAMPLES
A popular example would be auto complete search boxes. When you start typing in the search field and suggestions will appear below the box for you to choose from.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all use AJAX for their map applications. So when you click to zoom in, the page doesn’t refresh, the page automatically adds the zoomed in images and makes it look like it is zooming in, like magic!
TECHNICAL
The concept is pretty simple. When a user interacts on a web page JavaScript will interpret it, talk to the server, and react to the servers response. The communication between the server and client is sent as XML data.
DRAW BACKS
Now AJAX, with every other technology, should be used sparingly and only where it will truly beneficial. Don’t just use it to say you used it. Some things to consider for the users are Internet speeds, JavaScript being disabled and notifying the users of changes.
This cool stuff here, fairly new and can offer a lot for the user experience on site. AJAX opens a lot of possibilities for more functional and less static web.