jQuery for added enhancements
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
I thought I would write a little post about how jQuery can be used for little usability enhancements and effects. Now I would never recommend using jQuery without some prior Javascript knowledge but you can definitely jump right into jQuery if you want. I was fortunate enough to learn enough Javascript over the past year (see DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith) where I have really been able to use jQuery to its full potential. For those of you that don’t know jQuery is a Javascript library that takes out a lot of the tedious coding that is required in Javascript. The packed version is only 19kb so the added functionality is definitely worth it. Now onto some examples.
One of our most recent clients, MVP Software Inc., wanted to make use of some scrolling and fading elements. Now a year ago I would have used some simple flash elements. I know now that this is just overkill. Using jQuery and the InnerFade plugin we were able to successfully rotate the client testimonials (RANDOMLY) in the header (see the header on any page)…
Back to the CWS Home Page

So everyone would love to see how people use and view their website but it’s easier said than done. In a perfect world, everyone would have a budget and a good chunk of time for user testing but for smaller web projects this never happens. For those of you who don’t have the budget or time to conduct user testing head on over to ClickTale.
