Is graceful degradation in the absence of JavaScri

Question

When even mobile browsers have JavaScript, is it really necessary to consider potential script-free users?

Answer 1

Yes. Your web pages aren't just consumed by people: they're consumed by search engines, and crawlers, and screenscrapers. Most of those automatic tools don't support Javascript, and essentially none are going to generate UI events or look at deeply nested AJAX data. You want to have a simple static HTML fallback, if nothing else then so that your web pages are well indexed by the search engines.

Forget the crazies who disable Javascript; think of the robots!

Answer 2

If you don't want the page to work when Javascript is off then just have that be the message in html, and if javascript is on, by using unobtrusive javascript you can get rid of that message and make visible the rest of the application.

Depending on what you write for, in terms of javascript version, you may need to degrade if the browser the user has doesn't not have the latest version, so gracefully handling that is also important.

Answer 3

Yes.

People can (and do) browse with javascript disabled. If your site will work without users having to explicitly enable javascript for you, that makes them happy.

Exactly how relevant depends on your target audience, of course.

Answer 4

graceful degadation / progressive enhancement / unobstusive javascript is absolutely relevant!

as with all accessability issues: just imagine for one second what it's like to be the one on the outside who can't use the page.

imagine you're travelling around the world, you're in some hotel or internet café with really old computers, old software, old browsers, you want to look up your flight and you realize you can't because of some javascript incompatability in the old browser you're using. (try 'old mobile phone' or 'stuck behind a corporate firewall' for different scenarios)

image what a world of possibilities opend up to blind people with screen readers and the web, and image what it's like to find these possibilties closed again because of javascript.

so much for appealing to your better nature.

you might also want to do it to keep your site accessibly for search engines.

Answer 5

It is relevant and it will be relevant even after 10-20 years when javascript might be supported everywhere. making things work without javascript is important development technique because it forces you to keep things simple and declarative. ideally javascript should be used only to enhance experience but your website shouldn't depend on it.

there is clear advantage from maintenance point of view to have most of the code in declarative format (html+css) and as little as possible in imperative (javascript).

Answer 6

Yes, it's relevant. Mobile browsers in use today do not all have Javascript enabled. It's available on new phones, sure. But there are millions and millions of people like me, who have phones running older browsers, and for all of us, a JS-required browsing experience is just plain broken.

I don't even bother visiting sites that didn't have progressive enhancement in mind when they coded. I'm not technically behind the times. My phone is a year old. But I'm not going to re-up my contract and buy a new phone because of a crippled web experience.