Effects of AJAX Technology on the Usability of Blogs

摘要

AJAX can enhance Web applications by updating a part of the Web page instead of the whole page. This change of technology relates to a usability issue. We used WordPress 2.3 to create two versions of blogs: non-AJAX and AJAX. Then we conducted an experiment by giving a task scenario to eight participants. We collected performance data by recording users' mouse movements during the experiment and collected preference data by providing a questionnaire after the tasks. Finally, we conducted post-experiment interviews to gather participants' experiences. The quantitative results show that AJAX did not improve users' performances the first time they used it, while qualitative interviews demonstrate participants' satisfaction with AJAX blogs.