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Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications

by Jesse James Garrett
February 18, 2005 If anything about current interaction design can be called glamorous, its creating Web applications. After all, when was the last time you heard someone rave about the interaction design of a product that wasnt on the Web? (Okay, besides the iPod.) All the cool, innovative new projects are online. Despite this, Web interaction designers cant help but feel a little envious of our colleagues who create desktop software. Desktop applications have a richness and responsiveness that has seemed out of reach on the Web. The same simplicity that enabled the Webs rapid proliferation also creates a gap between the experiences Jesse James Garrett is a founder of Adaptive Path. In 2005, hell be bringing his full-day seminar The Elements of User Experience to Boulder, Sydney, Seattle and other cities around the globe. Printer-friendly version Google Suggest and Google Maps are two examples of a new approach to web applications Powered by Movable Type 2.661 that we at Adaptive Path have been calling Ajax. The name is shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, and it represents a fundamental shift in whats possible on the Web. That gap is closing. Take a look at Google Suggest. Watch the way the suggested terms update as you type, almost instantly. Now look at Google Maps. Zoom in. Use your cursor to grab the map and scroll around a bit. Again, everything happens almost instantly, with no waiting for pages to reload. we can provide and the experiences users can get from a desktop application. Essay Archives

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Defining Ajax
Ajax isnt a technology. Its really several technologies, each flourishing in its own right, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax incorporates: standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS; dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model; data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;

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asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest; and JavaScript binding everything together. The classic web application model works like this: Most user actions in the interface trigger an HTTP request back to a web server. The server does some processing retrieving data, crunching numbers, talking to various legacy systems and then returns an HTML page to the client. Its a model adapted from the Webs original use as a hypertext medium, but as fans of The Elements of User Experience know, what makes the Web good for hypertext doesnt necessarily make it good for software applications.

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Figure 1: The traditional model for web applications (left) compared to the Ajax model (right). This approach makes a lot of technical sense, but it doesnt make for a great user experience. While the server is doing its thing, whats the user doing? Thats right, waiting. And at every step in a task, the user waits some more. Obviously, if we were designing the Web from scratch for applications, we wouldnt make users wait around. Once an interface is loaded, why should the user interaction come to a halt every time the application needs something from the server? In fact, why should the user see the application go to the server at all?

How Ajax is Different

An Ajax application eliminates the start-stop-start-stop nature of interaction on the Web by introducing an intermediary an Ajax engine between the user and the server. It seems like adding a layer to the application would make it less responsive, but the opposite is true. Instead of loading a webpage, at the start of the session, the browser loads an Ajax engine written in JavaScript and usually tucked away in a hidden frame. This engine is responsible for both rendering the interface the user sees and communicating with the server on the users behalf. The Ajax engine allows the users interaction with the application to happen asynchronously independent of communication with the server. So the user is never staring at a blank browser window and an hourglass icon, waiting around for the server to do something.

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Figure 2: The synchronous interaction pattern of a traditional web application (top) compared with the asynchronous pattern of an Ajax application (bottom). Every user action that normally would generate an HTTP request takes the form of a JavaScript call to the Ajax engine instead. Any response to a user action that doesnt require a trip back to the server such as simple data validation, editing data in memory, and even some navigation the engine handles on its own. If the engine needs something from the server in order to respond if its submitting data for processing, loading additional interface code, or retrieving new data the engine makes those requests asynchronously, usually using XML, without stalling a users interaction with the application.

Whos Using Ajax

Google is making a huge investment in developing the Ajax approach. All of the major products Google has introduced over the last year Orkut, Gmail, the latest beta version of Google Groups, Google Suggest, and Google Maps are Ajax applications. (For more on the technical nuts and bolts of these Ajax implementations, check out these excellent analyses of Gmail, Google Suggest, and Google Maps.) Others are following suit: many of the features that people love in Flickr depend on Ajax, and Amazons similar techniques. These projects demonstrate that Ajax is not only technically sound, but also practical for real-world applications. This isnt another technology that only works in a laboratory. And Ajax applications can be any size, from the very simple, single-function Google Suggest to the very complex and sophisticated Google Maps. At Adaptive Path, weve been doing our own work with Ajax over the last several months, and were realizing weve only scratched the surface of the rich interaction and responsiveness that Ajax applications can provide. Ajax is an important development for Web applications, and its importance is only going to grow. And because there are so many A9.com search engine applies

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many more organizations following Googles lead in reaping the competitive advantage Ajax provides.

Moving Forward
The biggest challenges in creating Ajax applications are not technical. The core Ajax technologies are mature, stable, and well understood. Instead, the challenges are for the designers of these applications: to forget what we think we know about the limitations of the Web, and begin to imagine a wider, richer range of possibilities. Its going to be fun.

Ajax Q&A
March 13, 2005: Since we first published Jesses essay, weve received an enormous amount of correspondence from readers with questions about Ajax. In this Q&A, Jesse responds to some of the most common queries. Q. Did Adaptive Path invent Ajax? Did Google? Did Adaptive Path help build Googles Ajax applications? A. Neither Adaptive Path nor Google invented Ajax. Googles recent products are simply the highest-profile examples of Ajax applications. Adaptive Path was not involved in the development of Googles Ajax applications, but we have been doing Ajax work for some of our other clients. Q. Is Adaptive Path selling Ajax components or trademarking the name? Where can I download it? A. Ajax isnt something you can download. Its an approach a way of thinking about the architecture of web applications using certain technologies. Neither the Ajax name nor the approach are proprietary to Adaptive Path. Q. Is Ajax just another name for XMLHttpRequest? A. No. XMLHttpRequest is only part of the Ajax equation. XMLHttpRequest is the technical component that makes the asynchronous server communication possible; Ajax is our name for the overall approach described in the article, which relies not only on XMLHttpRequest, but on CSS, DOM, and other technologies. Q. Why did you feel the need to give this a name? A. I needed something shorter than Asynchronous JavaScript+CSS+DOM+XMLHttpRequest to use when discussing this approach with clients. Q. Techniques for asynchronous server communication have been around for years. What makes Ajax a new approach? A. Whats new is the prominent use of these techniques in real-world applications to change the fundamental interaction model of the Web. Ajax is taking hold now because these technologies and the industrys understanding of how to deploy them most effectively have taken time to develop. Q. Is Ajax a technology platform or is it an architectural style? A. Its both. Ajax is a set of technologies being used together in a particular way. Q. What kinds of applications is Ajax best suited for? A. We dont know yet. Because this is a relatively new approach, our understanding of where Ajax can best be applied is still in its infancy. Sometimes the traditional web application model is the most appropriate solution to a problem. Q. Does this mean Adaptive Path is anti-Flash? A. Not at all. Macromedia is an Adaptive Path client, and weve long been supporters of Flash technology. As Ajax matures, we expect that sometimes Ajax will be the better solution to a particular problem, and sometimes Flash will be the better solution. Were also interested in exploring ways the technologies can be mixed (as in the case of Flickr, which

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adaptive path ajax: a new approach to web applications

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Q. Does Ajax have significant accessibility or browser compatibility limitations? Do Ajax applications break the back button? Is Ajax compatible with REST? Are there security considerations with Ajax development? Can Ajax applications be made to work for users who have JavaScript turned off? A. The answer to all of these questions is maybe. Many developers are already working on ways to address these concerns. We think theres more work to be done to determine all the limitations of Ajax, and we expect the Ajax development community to uncover more issues like these along the way. Q. Some of the Google examples you cite dont use XML at all. Do I have to use XML and/or XSLT in an Ajax application? A. No. XML is the most fully-developed means of getting data in and out of an Ajax client, but theres no reason you couldnt accomplish the same effects using a technology like JavaScript Object Notation or any similar means of structuring data for interchange. Q. Are Ajax applications easier to develop than traditional web applications? A. Not necessarily. Ajax applications inevitably involve running complex JavaScript code on the client. Making that complex code efficient and bug-free is not a task to be taken lightly, and better development tools and frameworks will be needed to help us meet that challenge. Q. Do Ajax applications always deliver a better experience than traditional web applications? A. Not necessarily. Ajax gives interaction designers more flexibility. However, the more power we have, the more caution we must use in exercising it. We must be careful to use Ajax to enhance the user experience of our applications, not degrade it. Jesse James Garrett is a founder of Adaptive Path. In 2005, hell be bringing his full-day seminar The Elements of User Experience to Boulder, Sydney, Seattle and other cities around the globe.

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