Need for AJAX Patterns

Ajax holds a lot of promise for web usability, and the underlying technology has already delivered some stunning applications. But it's no magic bullet. Careful design is always required, and it target the technology at hand. As Ajax emerges, we're going to learn more about what sort of design works, and we'll need ways of documenting this information and talking about it. Fortunately, the evolution of this particular technology will take place at a time when design patterns are well-entrenched in the industry, and design patterns are an excellent means of knowledge representation. Thus, it makes sense to begin cataloguing Ajax design patterns. These are some thoughts based on current examples and demo systems.

Patterns being patterns, nothing in here is truly new. Patterns are just a concise way to represent the knowledge embodied in the many Ajax applications that are out there. The point is to discover best practices by investigating how developers have successfully traded off conflicting design principles. Ajax is all about usability, so the patterns focus particularly on delivering usability in the face of constraints, most notably: user capabilities and expectations, bandwidth limits, the stateless nature of HTTP, the complexity of Javascript.

There should eventually be more patterns, more examples, more detailed explanations. And one more disclaimer: Ajax is a new term, but XMLHttpRequest and related technologies have been around for a while. I know that, but the introduction of a single umbrella term nevertheless constitutes a tipping point which is forcing web development to move heavily in a certain direction. Ajax is only a name, but names can be tremendously important.

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Tags: ajax, ajax patterns, design, http, javascript

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