Interaction Layers and AJAX

So my current thinking on documenting AJAX is that I’m going to have use prototypes. Well my first reaction to this problem was that storyboards would handle this issue very nicely, then I actually put about two seconds of thought into the problem and realised that there could be two or more streams of information / interaction going on at any one time. So within this in mind you can still storyboard each interaction stream and then use a layered approach to show if and when interactions overlap (I think I’m going to call them “Interaction Layers”)

The more I think about this the more I can see that there will be different types of Interaction Layer. Well it’s more that I want to work in a way where I can classify different types of Interaction Layer.

(I feel I must mention at this point if you hadn’t already guessed, one of my main drivers/goals at the moment is to build an Information Architecture pattern library.)

So with this in mind and the fact that I want to classify these “Interaction Layers” I need to work in such away that whatever classification structure I use can then be reused at any level of my phantom pattern library.

Phantom Pattern Library Structure (BETA 2.0 ;-) )

Level 1
Field

Level 2
Component

Level 3
Page

Level 4
Section

Level 5
Application

Putting this in to practice will be interesting but for me the best aspect of this approach will be watching the library grow. As usual I digress so I will leave that idea there for now.

As I mentioned in an early post one of the elements of AJAX that must be documented with the greatest amount of care is Timing, Timing as I see it is the one place were storyboarding can’t help you. This is where prototyping is going to have to play a part!

Right I feel I wondered of so many issues in this post that I best stop now!

Jim

Categories: information-architecture, user-experience, web2.0, UX, theuxsuspects, wireframes, IA, RIA, AJAX