About Jesse James Garrett
Who is Jesse James? Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your work?
Jesse James: "My background is in writing and editing, but for the last eight years or so I've been an experience designer. I've made a habit of creating tools to solve problems I've faced and then releasing those tools into the world to see if others find them useful. The first of these was a conceptual model called The Elements of User Experience that proved popular enough that I was asked to turn it into a book. The latest of these is Ajax, a term I coined to describe a technological approach that seemed promising -- though of course I had no idea how popular it would ultimately become. I co-founded Adaptive Path in 2001 to advance the practice of creating products that deliver compelling experiences for their users."
About AJAX and related technologies
What do you think about Flash applications in relation to AJAX applications, are they “compatible” with each other or are they competitive?
Jesse James: "Flash and Ajax have different strengths and weaknesses. They don't have to compete -- Flash and Ajax components can work together on the page. As always, it's a matter of choosing the technology that's most appropriate to the needs of your users."
About Usability
Why is usability often overlooked in web projects?
Jesse James: "Many people think usability is going to take a lot of time, or cost a lot of money, or both. So they skip it, and instead they spend that time and that money after the project launches fixing all the ways in which they didn't meet the needs of their users. Somehow this is preferable to them."
How do you deal with people that think usability is a boring or unimportant aspect of web design?
Jesse James: "A lot of people have a bad impression of usability because they think it means wringing all the joy of invention out of their projects. They think usability means doing the research, then doing exactly what the research tells you to do. Obviously, there's no room for creative insight in a process like that. But no one I know follows such a process. Usability isn't about following the rules -- it's about acknowledging we don't know everything about our users, so we can learn from them. Then we apply that insight in our creative process."
In your Elements of User experience you describe a very popular model for achieving the optimal user experience in applications. How does AJAX fit in this popular model?
Jesse James: "With Elements I tried to identify some universal qualities -- the things that were true regardless of your technology choices. So in a sense Ajax, because it's so dependent on technology choices, doesn't really fit in at all. There is one interesting impact when we apply Elements to Ajax projects, though: Problems that used to be interface design issues often become interaction design issues because of Ajax."
Can you mention a few mistakes that developers often make when using AJAX?
Jesse James: "I think the biggest mistake developers make is in thinking that Ajax will automatically improve the experience of using their application.
There are a lot of ways Ajax can be used, and most of them are wrong.
When you think about using Ajax in your application, you should first consider how the user will benefit, as well as whether the Ajax functionality might violate their expectations. Also, if it ain't broke, don't fix it: some application functionality works perfectly fine with traditional Web technology. Ajax may provide a different way to accomplish the same end, but not necessarily a better one."
Do you think that AJAX will eventually raise interest in Usability and Accessibility?
Jesse James: "It seems inevitable to me. The interface constraints of traditional Web technology made it easy to neglect these concerns. The freedom and flexibility that Ajax brings to the Web present new challenges for developers. As we try to address these challenges, we're going to make a lot of mistakes. In order to avoid repeating those mistakes, a lot of people will start investigating usability and accessibility issues."
Read the complete interview in the October 2006 e-Magazine 