Why AJAX sucks (most of the time)

Today I read this interesting article about AJAX from usability-guru Jakob Nielsen. After reading it I must say that I agree with it on a lot of points. This may not seem remarkable, but it is actually once you know this whole article is a spoof. It's a slightly rewritten version of Jakob Nielsen's original article Why Frames suck (most of the time), which he wrote in 1996(!).

This article generated a lot of discussion among bloggers, because many of them missed the fact it's fake. Some interesting reactions on "Jakob's article" can be found here, here and here.

I think AJAX already is a very important factor in the current transition to web 2.0. Webapplications like Gmail, Writely and Flickr all use AJAX. But this doesn't mean I recommend the use of AJAX to all of our customers. Only use it if it really leads to a better user experience, otherwise stick to the good old webstandards. After all, it's just a technique.

technorati tags:ajax usability web2.0