AJAX for Designers

Good AJAX information in a single source ...

"David Heller just published Ajax for Designers (PDF) in order to answer:

• Why are we talking about this (Ajax) now?
• Why are we talking about this (Ajax) at all?
• What new paradigms for browser-based interfaces are we facing?

One situation where authors like to use popup windows is providing help for web forms. If a link to a help document opens in the same window, the data entered so far may be lost if the visitor follows the link in the same window. One solution to this problem is to put the help at the end of the current document, and provide in-page links. When the user navigates back to where they were stuck, the information is still in the form, as they've never left the current document. The problem with this approach is that it ruins the design, and understandably upsets the designers. Another solution is to put lots of helpful information by the side of each form element explaining in detail what is required. This not only suffers from the previous problem of upsetting the designers, but also results in information overload for some visitors who may be put off by the bulk of the resulting form.

The ideal situation would be to put the information by each form field, but only when the user requests help. This means that the form data stays in tact, as the user hasn't navigated away from the page; the designers are happy, because they only see their original design; we're happy because everyone else is happy. The rest of this article shows a scripting technique to achieve this. The Mock Number Transfer system illustrates this technique in practice."   continued ...   (Via Synaptic Burn)

Ajax Capabilities.