Adopting AJAX in an e-commerce world: projected reactions
Tim Haines has put together a really good idea, a "blogversation" in which he's calling on the blogosphere to debate the merits of AJAX within an e-commerce environment. He even setup Handy Shop, a clever faux online storefront to demo some of the projected features asynchronous XMLHTTP calls via JavaScript would provide.
I see three main arguments with this proposition relative to behavioral shifts after implementing AJAX:
- On developers - communally pondering how to create a somewhat similar series of winning web application UI elements using AJAX in online stores, HTTP-S environments, etc. Tricks, downloadable common JavaScript libraries, and code snippets to pull off things like reading/persisting session state between server-side and client-side code will abound. Certain platforms (namely ASP.NET and JSP) will proliferate quicker than others (likely PHP) due to community size, developer support, organized corporate marketing push, resource materials, and adoption ease. But regardless of platform, it's going to need to stress ease of use for the end user and fast performance for the system(s) on which it runs and with which it interacts.
- On e-commerce - shaping a refined industrial embrace of the new capabilities of AJAX-style sites, doing things like drilling down into product descriptions, shopping cart summaries and other functions all on the client through new and innovative UI elements, which today require opening sub-windows, navigating to new pages, or reloading pages. Adoption of new features by majors players like Amazon is going to usher in a new form of interactivity, and provide a lot more information up front with a lot less waiting. This will make possible new forms of cross-selling, upselling, dynamic recommendations, intelligent suggestions, etc., and all instantaneously. This also makes it harder for a startup web storefront to get involved right off the bat (we're way beyond the typical FrontPage template here, folks). This additionally will put competitive pressure on legacy sites to keep up with the Joneses and scale up to match a new extended level of user experience, perhaps forcing porting enterprise code to a new platform, or a total rewrite.
- On users - consumers will need to change their learn how to use a "rich web" based on AJAX...and this won't be easy. Much in the way like users from all walks of life haven't really latched on to or learned how to properly use wikis, they won't immediately "get it", expecting a postback or additional page launch when clicking any and all hyperlinks on a page. This is where the majority of the legwork is going to need to be done, and ultimately is the most critical part.
What do you think? I've made some pretty broad assumptions about the projected environmental reactions to the introduction of AJAX based on experience, observed historical behavior patterns and calculated releases. But that's the thing about technology - it's never the same thing twice and you never really know what to expect the next day.