Application Watch - Valoony: Ajax Enabled Comparison Shopping

Dietrich Kappe, Friday, September 29, 2006 @ 3:05 pm

The German comparison shopping site Valoony has launched three new Ajax enabled comparison shopping mini apps: one for digital cameras, another for perfume, and -- my favorite -- one for wine.

The interface allows you to adjust various numerical parameters using sliders, select brands, types and specific stores, and enter search terms, etc., all of which cause the right hand content panel to update via XHR. On Joe Walker's 4 States of Ajax Adoption, I'd say this is state #2 -- Progressive Enhancement. The interface still uses IFrames and more traditional pre-Ajax techniques. Also, you can easily get into a confused application state by using the browser's back button instead of the "Zurueck" button in the page.

From a user experience perspective, I'm not sure this particular use of Ajax improves my shopping experience or is something that couldn't have been done before with Javascript and IFrames. Then again, I don't know what the old shopping experience was like, so this may be a vast improvement. It's certainly much better than my last frustrated fumblings on CNet. Also, I got an excellent deal on a 1996 Brunello.

Technorati : ajax, ecommerce

agile ajax

Comments

• Leave a comment
• Comment feed for this post
• TrackBack URL

None so far.

Leave a comment