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Ask HN: How important is support for non-Javascript visitors?

3 points| fooandbarify | 15 years ago

With the "recent" popularity of developing the API before the app, I'm curious how many of you still consider support for non-JS users important. I have typically been pretty comfortable requiring JS for a while now, at least in initial releases. I know that really bothers some people, but it seems to be an extremely small subset of people, and seems to be based on principle more than anything else (or maybe not enough people care to complain). What's your take, HN?

EDIT: Clarifying text.

7 comments

order
[+] uuoc|15 years ago|reply
If you are willing to turn away interested customers, then feel free to require JS.

But, myself, I browse with NoScript turned on at all times, and if I come to your site and it does not work because JS is required, then I will simply leave and go to the guy next door who does not require JS just to use his site.

[+] Travis|15 years ago|reply
The flip side of the coin is how much money will it cost to support users like you.

Take the high end of the Yahoo! estimate from this thread -- 2% of your users have JS turned off. If it takes 10% more programming time to support those users, is it worth it? That's a question that can only be answered in a specific context.

You are "supposed" to build your app using progressive enhancement and graceful degradation. But that puts an additional burden on the programmer. If that burden is worth it to you, then do it. Otherwise, don't bother supporting JS-disabled users.

My startup is focused on b2b users. Few of them don't have JS. It takes more of my mindshare and time to support those people. Without an affirmative business case to support those people, I cannot justify it to my cofounders.

[+] fooandbarify|15 years ago|reply
Not only am I willing, I think it's sometimes very smart to turn away interested customers now and then. The tricky part is determining who and when. May I ask why you prefer to browse without JS? And what do you primarily use the internet for?
[+] dmazin|15 years ago|reply
And I'm totally okay with that.
[+] CPops|15 years ago|reply
The right choice depends on your target market and what your overall goals are.

But my opinion is that for startups, the smartest way to utilize limited resources is to avoid supporting things like IE6 and users without JS enabled and just build your applications for early adopters, because thats who is going to use it initially anyway and make or break your business.

The answer might be different if you're part of an established company with dozens of programmers and you have the resources to support everybody without any problems.

[+] dmazin|15 years ago|reply
It honestly seems like an unnecessary step for a small product. Like others have said, when you have resources worth throwing at people like that guy over there with NoScript mania, go for it, but that won't be an issue for a long time.
[+] cancelbubble|15 years ago|reply
JavaScript disabled on Yahoo home page:

http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/10/how-many-...

"After crunching the numbers, we found a consistent rate of JavaScript-disabled requests hovering around 1% of the actual visitor traffic, with the highest rate being roughly 2 percent in the United States...

The second takeaway is that JavaScript-disabled users exist. While 2% of U.S. visitors may not seem like a lot, keep in mind that over 300 million users visit the Yahoo! homepage each month. That means 6 million users visit each month without the benefit of JavaScript...While the percentage of visitors with JavaScript disabled seems like a low number, keep in mind that small percentages of big numbers are also big numbers. "

And a follow-up post:

http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/10/followup-...