WebWork

Posted on Ajaxian.com today, there is a good argument that applications that use AJAX for validation are easier to use. WebWork has built in support for this style of validation, so give it a shot and see if your users find your application is easier to use now!

Ajax Case Study - Simple Validations Reduce Costs/Increase Usability:

In a follow-up to his previous post, Jesper Rønn-Jensen looks yet again at business uses of Ajax technologies - specifically a 'case study' looking at one of his recent usability issues.

As a followup to my earlier post ‘AJAX performance stats, ROI, and business value‘, I decided that I’d share with you some considerations on a recent project I was involved in.

Anyways, I want to give you some of the details on why we decided to implement AJAX validations in this particular web application. We had a complex interface where the user had to enter a lot of information about a lot of users. In this particular solution, the typical usage scenario is that an employee has data about multiple users to enter: That could for example be name, age, social security numbers etc.

He mentions the two models that they looked at - the 'Edit one object at a time' idea and the 'Edit multiple objects at the same time' school of thought. For each, they give an example, including a sample screenshot of the method.

While both methods had their strengths, the real time-saver came in the form of the Ajax-based validations on the data that was being entered. Spotlighting an incorrect field with a red highlight reduces the guesswork without detracting from their entry work.

(Via Ajaxian Blog.)