In my previous post I outlined where the term Ajax came from so in this post I will take a closer look at why Ajax was needed.
Traditionally, a users interaction with web applications involved them entering a URL in a browser which triggered a HTTP request to the server. The server then processed the request and responded with some HTML. When the user interacted with the page by submitting some data or requesting a new page another request was forwarded to the server and the entire page was once again returned to the browser as HTML.
Due to this request/response architecture inherent in HTTP it often resulted in a slow and cumbersome application as the user had to wait for the page to be reloaded each time they carried out a task. This created a less than desirable user experience which desktop applications did not suffer from.
Web developers were therefore looking at ways to improve the user experience which is where the technologies known as Ajax were used. So in my next post I will look at how Ajax improves the user experience.
Next: How does Ajax improve the user experience?
REFERENCES
Garrett, JJ 2005, ‘Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications’, Adaptive Path, viewed 24th May 2008, Â
<http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/000385.php>
World Wide Web Consortium, ‘The Original HTTP as defined in 1991’, last viewed 24th May 2008,
<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/AsImplemented.html>