Zeldman pokes fun at the expense of Web 2.0 with his Web 3.0 piece on A List Apart . And he offers wonderful advice to any entrepreneur.
To you who are toiling over an AJAX- and Ruby-powered social software product, good luck, God bless, and have fun. Remember that 20 other people are working on the same idea. So keep it simple, and ship it before they do, and maintain your sense of humor whether you get rich or go broke. Especially if you get rich. Nothing is more unsightly than a solemn multi-millionaire.
I think Zeldman this the mark about wireframing AJAX sites.
Wireframing AJAX is a bitch. The best our agency has come up with is the Chuck Jones approach: draw the key frames. Chuck Jones had an advantage: he knew what Bugs Bunny was going to do. We have to determine all the things a user might do, and wireframe the blessed moments of each possibility.
These issues are a sign that we need to build better tools for prototyping and wireframing dynamic actions. Dynamic interfaces have been around for a long time. Wireframes in my experience a relatively recent phenomena. We’ve had tools like Hypercard in the past. New tools like Ruby on Rails allow the rapid building of functioning systems. Agile practices focus on smaller units of work that get functioning systems in the hands of users faster. With appropriate testing (unit, load, customer) and agile development practices, we are able to build more robust user interfaces and applications then we could in Hypercard. This does require a small, diverse team like the great guys at 37signals .
Zeldman’s right, Wireframing for AJAX still sucks!