Making the Web Work: Designing Effective Web Applications

Defining Web Applications

Also known as a Web-based application, a Web app, a Web-top, and a handful of other goofy names that don’t merit repeating, a Web application is a specific type of Web site that implicitly and explicitly stores and manipulates data unique to each of its users. Put more succinctly, a Web application is software on the Web.

Web applications differ from traditional content-based Web sites in that they interact with users in a one-to-one manner. To enable such user-specific behavior, users are typically required to identify themselves by providing a user ID and password. Once they’re identified, visitors to a Web application can make permanent changes to their data by creating, editing, and deleting various types of ...