Mar 11th, 2007
Spice Up Your Site With AJAX
Besides just sounding cool, AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a extremely useful, and somewhat new method that you can use to quickly and efficiently display data and exchange information from a server or external data source to the viewers page. The applications for this are almost infinite, but let’s look at an example.
You have an e-commerce website, and you notice that about 30% of your visitors that put an item in the shopping cart, and start the checkout process exit somewhere before the purchase is made. This is a very bad thing. You then realize that you have 10 pages in your checkout process. The user has to wait for the page to reload 10 different times; no wonder 30% are leaving. You can use AJAX to cut this process down to 2 or 3 pages, by dynamically sending and reloading certain elements on the pages. This does two things for you. It increases load times, and you’ll gain back that 30% that quit because they had to go through 10 pages.
If you have never looked at AJAX before, here are a bunch of links that will be helpful for whatever you decide you want to do. Little things like adding a AJAX contact form, or poll, or slideshow can add a lot of spice to your site, and be pleasing to the eye as well as being user effective.
AJAX Desktop / Homepage Tutorial
Tutorials Round Up: AJAX
A library of DHTML and AJAX Scripts
30 AJAX Tutorials
AJAX: What is it good for?
MiniAjax.com
Before you go and add 15 AJAX elements to your website, first think about the reason you’re doing it. Are you trying to just use the latest technology, and have a cool looking fade effect on your site? Or do you want to honestly increase site efficiency, and therefore create better user response? Hopefully you’ll be thinking about the latter. The poll I have on this site is AJAX based, and it accomplishes what I need (to get user feedback), in a very nice and clean style. I see AJAX as a perfect solution to the problem of form and function. You have a need (the function part), and you can complete that in beautiful and very aesthetic manner (the form) using AJAX.
