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Possible Duplicate:
Should I Bother To Develop for JavaScript Disabled?

In this Modern time of

  • HTML5 API
  • jQuery
  • Modernizr
  • HTML5 Shim
  • Respond.JS
  • Google Chrome app store

  • Canvas

    Has the time gone to think about user with JavaScript disabled in browser? Ot it's still need to be consider

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Modernizr does test whether js is enabled or not and if you want to present your user with a different view in that case, then you can build your CSS for the "no-js" view. – Niklas Dec 29 '11 at 11:45
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That is very dependent on what you are creating with JavaScript and what it will cost you for people to experience your website without JavaScript. – alex Dec 29 '11 at 11:45
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@YannisRizos - the question you mentioned is a year old – Jitendra Vyas Dec 29 '11 at 12:57
@JitendraVyas So? Most technologies you mention are quite older... – Yannis Rizos♦ Dec 29 '11 at 13:02
@JitendraVyas The accepted answer on that thread is as true today as it was when written. – Jetti Dec 29 '11 at 13:36
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Dec 29 '11 at 12:11

marked as duplicate by Yannis Rizos♦, Jetti, Jarrod Nettles, David Thornley, Marjan Venema Dec 29 '11 at 15:12

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

It is as it has always been, IMO. It just depends if you want to target 100% of the population, or if you don't care about the M % who have a completely outdated browser, and the N % who disable JavaScript.

M and N tend to decrease, and I don't care about them much. But your boss or your investor could be of a different opinion.

I'd find it more important to make an app accessible to disabled persons (who don't have a choice), rather than caring about those who have a choice but choose not to use a modern browser with JavaScript enabled.

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In my experience, M is decreasing, but N is increasing. There's some fear of javascript out there that's causing people to disable it. – Brian Knoblauch Dec 29 '11 at 12:52
up vote 0 down vote

It depends very much on your intended audience.

A personal blog on web development, for example, will have very few visitors with js disabled.

A business website, on the other hand, might have more old-fashioned business executive types who come to visit, and it may be very important to make sure the site is accessible to them. They are the customers, after all!

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A blog on web development may have lots of visitors with Javascript disabled, at least on first visit. Web developers are more likely than the general populace to understand the dangers of leaving JS enabled. – David Thornley Dec 29 '11 at 15:08
up vote 13 down vote

For web apps, yes, I think it's okay to require JavaScript because it's the nature of web apps to provide a rich, interactive user interface.

More simple websites like blogs, portfolios or brand websites should be able to work without JavaScript, in my opinion. I make all my websites work without JavaScript.

I know a few people who disabled JavaScript or block it with NoScript due to security concerns or because they are annoyed of animations.

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+1 For pointing out the difference between a website and a webapp. – maple_shaft♦ Dec 29 '11 at 12:13
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Don't forgot about the blind, the crawlers, SEO and people using text based browsers. – Raynos Dec 29 '11 at 12:49
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@Raynos: Well, you really don't want crawlers to crawl through private data in web apps. So it is really a non-issue SEO wise. But if it is public facing data, then it should be viewable without using javascript. – Spoike Dec 29 '11 at 13:35
up vote 0 down vote

I haven't considered this in a while for most sites I've worked on given the user base I typically have. Largely, it's a matter of knowing your user base and what they have enabled. You can use various analytics scripts to determine this.

Along the same lines, I am more careful now about providing a good experience on mobile devices when it comes to using Javascript widgets. For example, I avoid using a lot of resizing tricks since they cause problems with pinch-zoom and orientation flip functionality and dropdown menus since they're difficult to use on a mobile touch screen.

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