What does AJAX mean for you?

We have all heard a lot about AJAX. But aside from being a four-letter acronym, what is AJAX, and what does AJAX mean to you, the UI designer? This article is intended to shed some light on AJAX at an introductory level. AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, but has come to represent much more than that. AJAX represents an entire new paradigm in Web design. Moving forward from the single-page paradigm of the Web, AJAX enables a design style that is more dynamic and more interactive, much more like a regular desktop application. While AJAX is used primarily in Web design— indeed, this article focuses on the Web—it will open up new design possibilities beyond the Web. AJAX suggests a new design methodology for all desktop applications. Adobe has its AIR(tm) framework, Microsoft has its Silverlight framework, and Opera has its Opera Desktop. All three seek to bring this Web paradigm to the desktop, thus changing traditional application design. In all these examples, AJAXstyle programming is used of the entire active display. For example, in the old paradigm, when a new email message arrives, an entire display of data (which could be hundreds of items) is pushed down and repainted on the screen. With AJAX, only the new message is updated. Only the local screen area that needs to be refreshed is updated.