Gadgetopia

Ajax Mistakes: This resource is so, so necessary. As I’ve ranted about before, Ajax has the potential to introduce a massive new dimension of UI problems into the Web.

Ajax is also a dangerous technology for web developers, its power introduces a huge amount of UI problems as well as server side state problems and server load problems. I’ve compiled a list of the many mistakes developers using Ajax often make.

He read my mind on the item below — this is the the number one error people are making with Ajax:

Breaking the back button. The back button is a great feature of standard web site user interfaces. Unfortunately, the back button doesn’t mesh very well with Javascript. Keeping back button functionality is a major reason not to go with a pure Javascript web app.

How do you “break the back button.” Simple: when the back button does something other than what the user expects it to. And how do you know exactly what the user expects the back button to do? That’s what you get paid to predict, my friend.