Using AJAX for the ‘User’ Not Because You Can

AJAX is a very nice tool.  It allows us to build web pages that can retrieve bits of information with having to reload the entire page.  But some developers can take this to an extreme.  These developers want to possibly load the whole site’s content through AJAX.  After the user clicks a few links,  the user sees new data and finds something of interest.  The user may want to “Bookmark” the page.  If the user tries to bookmark the current data, they will not be able to.  The URL still has the original landing page location.

This is similar to users wanting to bookmark “Framed Pages”, the URL of a Framed site always stays at the www.domainname.com.  This is not “Good” for the users,  if they go back to the “bookmark” they have to search for that page again(if they remember why they bookmarked it in the first place).  If they can’t find the data they were after or couldn’t remember why they had that site, it will probably get deleted from the users bookmarks.

My Theory for the User:

1. Create bookmarkable page sections.
2. Update Data or Change Data that belongs on that page and will be there (or similar data) in the future.
3. Unrelated or more complex changes/updates to the page deserve their own page.
4.  Don’t make the user “Learn” how to use your site.

Well that seems pretty basic and painless if followed.