PART II
Chapter 8: User Interface Design for Ajax 405
Ajax applications. However, these issues can be corrected. It is quite possible to build an
Ajax application that can be used in an alternate form so that the disabled and the less
technologically advanced can participate. Whether you call it progressive enhancement,
starting from the lower form and adding features, or graceful degradation, where you
reduce from a rich form to basic form, the point is the same: we can really make our
application work for a multitude of different people and environments. The next chapter
does not appear to be about accessibility as it covers the ever-evolving topic of Ajax
application architecture. Yet, as we present the architecture questions and our take on the
solution, you’ll see that it will address and hopefully solve these accessibility problems very
directly.Summary
Ajax fundamentally changes the way Web sites and applications work, but with such a
dramatic change comes the need for new—or at the very least modified—interface
conventions. In this chapter, we explored some of the changes required to support the Ajax
form of network communications. With a less predictable pattern of activity and few built-in
browser indicators to rely on, Ajax developers must work to let users know what is going on
lest they lose faith in the application when facing a network or data problem. Given that
content changes may be more subtle than before, we also demonstrated the use of various
transitions and highlighting effects. Ajax applications also tend to be richer interactivity wise
than their predecessors. We presented a number of techniques such as click-to-edit and
interface widgets such as auto-suggest drop-downs that gave a sense of immediacy to users.
We note that some of the ideas presented such as drag-and-drop do not necessarily directly
require any form of network activity and thus are not really Ajax in the strict sense, but, like
all interface controls, they could be wired up to cause asynchronous network activity. Rather
than covering all possible rich interface widgets that a developer might use in an Ajax
application, we presented mostly those which provided a sense of direct manipulation or high
speed or that fundamentally needed Ajax to be effective. A comprehensive list of all possible
interface widgets that could be driven by Ajax-based communications would not only be
quite enormous, it would divert us from presenting new and more Ajax-appropriate thinking.