Please see the following code:
Otherwise you can simply do a return false which will do both preventDefault and stop propagation
$('#helloButton').click(function (e) {
$('#hello').html('<div>hello world</div>');
return false;
});
in order to prevent the form from posting, so that you can see your changes, you need to call preventDefault()
$('#helloButton').click(function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
$('#hello').html('<div>hello world</div>');
});