Making Websites Location Aware With HTML5 Geolocation | Webdesigntuts

Assumption can be a risky business in the world of UX, but some assumptions can enable you to deliver a more tailored user experience to your visitors. We’re going to look at enhancing user experience by making your websites location aware.

User experience has sprung forward into the forefront of web design in the last ten years or so. As users we’re constantly being asked to provide updated information about ourselves. Anything from Twitter asking us “What’s happening?” to Facebook asking us what we ‘like’. All of this allows these companies, amongst other things, to build up a pretty detailed and accurate profile of you so that they can provide you with a more personal user experience.

Around the same time that HTM5 was announced, another API was introduced to us from W3C. I’m pretty sure you may have heard of it; the Geolocation API. This allows your site to receive geographic positioning information using JavaScript.