This article comes from highscalability.com, 3 Secrets to Lightning Fast Mobile Design at Instagram. The article is based on a slide deck from Mike Krieger, co-founder of Instagram.
Very interestingly, they talk about focusing on the user experience and worrying about the coding second. The focus is to make the user feel productive by performing actions optimistically, then backing out the actions if they are canceled, like file sharing. They automatically start uploading the photo. If the user cancels or otherwise does not want to share the photo, then it is deleted on the back end. If the user clicks the like button or posts a comment, then the action is immediately noted in the UI while the action is completed in the background.
This really is in stark contrast to traditional apps where the app only goes to work after the user takes some action. The user is forced to wait while the app works, and this is bad for the user experience. This does put more load on the back end, but really improves the user experience. Speed is king!
- Craig
