Chapter 6. The user experience
This chapter covers
- Key features of usable code
- Common notification features
- A reusable framework for notifications
- Highlighting updated data in situ
In chapter 1, we discussed usability, the keystone to any software application. No matter how well organized your codebase and how clever the technical merits of your application, if the usability stinks, you leave a bad association in the user’s mind. This can be grossly unfair, but it’s a fact of life. More people recognize Albert Einstein for his hangdog looks and wild hair than understand what he was trying to say about the nature of space-time. First impressions—and attention to detail—matters.
In chapters 2 to 5, we introduced a lot of cool technology and did some clever things with Ajax. The focus on organization throughout the latter part of this journey has enabled us to be flexible and highly adaptive about how we do these things. However, our examples have been rather rough around the edges, and rightly so while we focused on the cleverness at hand, but now we need to step back and assess what we have done in terms of creating something that people will actually want to use, possibly for several hours a day. The topics presented in this chapter will go a long way toward helping you get your Ajax application ready and presentable for the real world.