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6 Comments

Support for JavaScript being Disabled

tl; dr: Should I provide a way for developers to use the website portion of the product if they have JS disabled?

I am working a product idea where the primary user will be developers of all sorts (embedded, systems, desktop, web, mobile, game, ..) and one thing I have noticed throughout all the chats/forums/etc. that I have been involved in is that there is a certain percentage of them complaining about a website not being available because they have JS disabled and the site doesn't work, or there is "way too much JavaScript" and the site is (in their experience) slow and/or "bloated."

Even if I was to provide an alternate version for non-JS users it would be something that came after the initial launch, but something I would want to keep in my head during the primary development. I have done something like this before, but it was for a specific (internal to the customer) clientele that were limited in their browser and configuration. There was basically a job that ran each night to render a new static website with anything that changed during that day.

  • Am I overthinking this?
  • Is this one of those cases where I am trying to appease a type of user that would/may not be the kind of user I want in the first place?
  • Does anyone have any experience in doing something like this?

Thanks,

on January 22, 2020
  1. 4

    I browse using a plugin called NoScript. It's blocking 10 things at the moment on this website, yet I can use it completely. If I browse to a website that doesn't work I usually check why and allow the js to run. so my two cents are : People who disable js know that they disabled it , so they are prepared for broken websites , but I think if you are not building an SPA or PWA you should make sure the site is not completely broken when the js is disabled. So it's a good idea to use HTML forms for post requests etc...

    1. 1

      I also use plugins that disable JS, but it is more explicit in what gets blocked. It is a very good point that people know they are blocking it, and know what needs to be done to overcome that. I guess part of me was trying to win "brownie points" for the effort. :-)

  2. 3

    You are over worrying about it.

    "developers of all sorts" => big enough audience not to worry about marginals.

    1. 2

      I'm going to second this. I personally wouldn't spend any time on it. If you want to at least try to capture the size of the user set, you could create a ping-pong request-response in js. Log the ip of of every html request and look for a follow-on ajax request that matches that ip. If one never arrives you can assume the user is blocking js.

  3. 2

    Wait... What? No!

  4. 2

    For my sites, I generally like to have the site be viewable with JS disabled but allow interactions more complicated than a form post to require JS.