PART II
Chapter 8: User Interface Design for Ajax 403
Now hit back, and you are directly thrown out of the application (see Figure 8-21). Try to
bookmark your favorite section and return to it later and you will be deposited at the top
level. Note the URL never changes in the status bar as you use the example. There are a
great number of architectural concerns with Ajax applications that need to be addressed.
We don’t put this discussion off too long; our goal in this chapter was to teach you the
individual bricks, and in the next chapter, we are going to discuss how to put them together.
Yet before we do that, let’s briefly touch on a topic that may appear at first out of place and
too short but is not: accessibility.Accessibility
Before wrapping up this chapter, we touch upon a very important topic, accessibility, which
is the idea of making sure that a web site/application can still be used by those who are
disabled in the physical sense or disabled in the technological sense. For example, not only
do we consider blind users and those who have movement difficulties, but we should be
interested in those who can’t or won’t have certain technologies available.
If you listen to conventional wisdom, Ajax and accessibility don’t get along. The Ajax
accessibility critics’ points are valid in general and are summarized here:- Ajax-based sites so heavily rely on JavaScript that they can’t really be used by screen
reading programs. - Ajax applications break the traditional one URL equals one resource architecture of
the Web, wreaking havoc on screen readers and search bots alike.
FIGURE 8-20 To-do list—interface complete?