Nielsen: Why Ajax Sucks (Most of the Time)

[UPDATE] Matthew points out that I’ve been duped. The article I’m spouting off about below is a spoof (a pretty good one.) I totally fell for it.

Like any new approach to an old problem, Ajax is overused and sometimes abused. Our old friend Jakob Nielsen thinks Ajax sucks. He’s more wrong than right here. Most of his argument is based on the fact that Ajax breaks the existing model of the web, stating “The fundamental design of the Web is based on having the page as the atomic unit of information.” Sure, when you’re reading a news article or browsing other static content, that makes sense. But when you’re doing something that the web wasn’t originally designed to do, like use web applications and such, it’s a whole different animal.

“If users create a bookmark in their browser they may not get the same view back when they follow the bookmark at a later date since the bookmark doesn’t include a representation of the state of the content on the page.”

I know, it’s wierd isn’t it? I just don’t think it matters in the case of “pages” that do things other than present a few paragraphs of text. Post a comment on this site and tell me that the ajax effect isn’t an improved way to handle that. Use Google Maps or any other well-done Ajax-riddled application and tell me you’d prefer a “atomic unit of information” instead.