Forms, Ratings, Voting, Hierarchical Navigation. are just a few places that webdevs must implement AJAX to stay ahead of the curve. Users expect instant results from a webpage. No one likes to wait while a pages refreshes. So, by implementing AJAX in these interface situations you are giving your user no reason, not to participate in the interactivity of the site. There are definitely places where AJAX should be limited, but this article does a good job of laying out which situations lend themselves to be enhanced from a little AJAX touch.

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Examples

Once you’ve read the article check out these links that show where these techniques are being used and how elegant they are.