In the late 1990s, with the rise of the Internet, many enterprise software vendors latched onto browser-based user interfaces as the next logical step. And, while Web interfaces were certainly easier to deploy than fat client-server clients, in many respects they represented a step back when it came to ease of use.
One of the major problems was that, using first-generation Web technologies such as HTML and HTTP, it was difficult for developers to design user interfaces that were as intuitive, responsive, and clean as earlier client-server UIs. That's because, in most situations, HTML/HTTP-mediated Web pages require the entire page to be re-loaded from the server each time a change is made to the data being displayed. So things like drop-down menus and expandable dashboards were difficult to pull off.
"With most early Web-based UIs, users entered the click-and-wait paradigm," says Christian Pantel, director of user experience at Infor.
In the early 2000s, however, Microsoft and others began working on enhancements to first-generation Web technologies that are now beginning to show up in a new generation of more responsive UIs. Known as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), this collection of Web technologies and programming methods basically allows for the asynchronous loading of content on an existing Web page without requiring a full reload of the page.
Not surprisingly, vendors of Web-based on-demand enterprise applications have been among the first to clean up their UIs using AJAX. NetSuite, for example, has begun using AJAX to reduce UI clutter and expand its deployment of dashboards and other UI devices that allow users to more easily hide and retrieve information as needed without waiting for an entire page to reload. NetSuite and other vendors are also using AJAX to enhance UIs with dynamic assistant features that guide users through workflows.
But more established enterprise application vendors are not far behind in using AJAX to enhance Web-based UIs. Officials at SAP and Oracle say they are building AJAX into their next-generation Web UIs. SAP's Muse UI, based on AJAX, is due out in the middle of this year. And competitor Infor is also designing around AJAX.
"The first generation of Web user interfaces didn't have the immediacy of response that people needed to be productive," Pantel says. "By giving us the ability to incrementally refresh a Web page without having to make a complete round trip to the server, AJAX helps us make UIs more productive and efficient."