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Does this mean that you can expect a 10% loss in sales?
What are peoples thoughts on this? Is it not worth building such a site that will lose you a sale if the visitor dont do javascript?
Instead, the design should be accessible by creating your base as pure HTML markup. Then, "progressively enhance" the site with JavaScript/AJAX, CSS, etc. If you do a Google search for "Progressive Enhancement", you should find plenty of information on this technique. It's great for accessibility, but also makes for a nice clean design with separation of layers so your site becomes easier to maintain and troubleshoot.
The way i see it, in 2 years time a large majority of the sites you visit will rely on JS.
Sure.. reliance on JS for a website to operate might be considered bad practice to some, but how is this any different to the use of flash?
YouTube, for example, wouldn't work if we all disabled flash. Does this mean that YouTube is a poorly designed website? Are you going to argue with $1.65B?
So does this mean that Microsoft is encouraging poor website design with its heavy use of javascript in PostBack with dotnet?
If the framework is set up so that web apps come out being unusable with javascript disabled, then yes, I would say MS is encouraging poor website design (again--they do not have a sterling track record [microsoft.com] in this regard).
The way i see it, in 2 years time a large majority of the sites you visit will rely on JS.
This may be true, it may not be. I also recall similar predictions being made in the late 90s...anybody remember the DHTML hooha? (Granted: DOM support is now widespread and reliable enough to make this a much more realistic prospect than it was in the 90s; all the more reason to learn to do it right.)
Sure.. reliance on JS for a website to operate might be considered bad practice to some, but how is this any different to the use of flash?
Your argument is kind of circular--not to mention peppered with irrelevancies. Flash is another question although it is worth pointing out that it may be more widely available than javascript [adobe.com]. In any case, poor use of javascript is hardly excused by the fact that others use Flash badly. If anything, the many unusable Flash sites out there should make you wary of over-reliance on javascript--who has never been annoyed by a badly implemented UI in Flash?
What I think you have not understood (in spite of Fotiman's concise characterization of the issues) is that no problems whatsoever are caused by the use of javascript, but many problems are caused by total reliance on javascript. Set the site up so that it works without javascript--the site's data will have to be submitted to and validated by server-side scripts no matter what you do--then add javascript functionality.
YouTube, for example, wouldn't work if we all disabled flash. Does this mean that YouTube is a poorly designed website? Are you going to argue with $1.65B?
Well again, Flash is a red herring in a discussion of javascript, but yes, if YouTube fails to deliver useful content when Flash is not available, then it is poorly built. Remember that in the case of a technology like Flash 'useful content' doesn't necessarily mean "identical to what you'd get if Flash were available." In this context, 'useful' content might be an explanation or list of the available content and why it might be advantageous to the user to get Flash (and recall too that we were doing this with Flash sites already in 1996...) Think of it as analagous to the use of the alt attribute in images; if the user has disabled images, alt text may induce him or her to re-enable them--possibly, in the case of commercial sites, to your advantage.
This strategy can convert. Giving non Flash/javascript visitors a broken site can not.
-b
Apparently 10% of web users have javascript disabled when they browse
imho, this statistic just cannot be true, quite frankly most people don't even know how to turn javascript off, i'd be suprised if most WebmasterWorld members knew how to turn it off, let alone most members of the public.
also anyone who knows how to turn it off (just like cookies and referer headers) can turn it back on if they really need to.
personally i think keeping js to a minimum is good, just because i like simplicity.
the utube example above is excellent as well, because of course many people don't have flash or they disable it, however the kind of person that wants to use utube will have flash.
So does this mean that Microsoft is encouraging poor website design with its heavy use of javascript in PostBack with dotnet?
bedlam put this very well. Note, "use of javascript" does not imply poor design. "dependency of javascript" does.
The way i see it, in 2 years time a large majority of the sites you visit will rely on JS.
I think you are very wrong about that. A large majority of sites may include JavaScript enhancements, but I think more and more will be doing it correctly so that it doesn't "rely" on JavaScript.
Accessibility is quickly becoming a hot topic. In fact, retailer Target is currently facing a lawsuit for providing an inaccessible website. I see accessibility becoming more widely accepted notion in the coming years.
Sure.. reliance on JS for a website to operate might be considered bad practice to some, but how is this any different to the use of flash?
It should be noted that there are ways to provide accessible Flash as well. That is, provide an HTML equivalent. Just as you shouldn't generally be providing inaccessible content via Flash, nor should you do so with JavaScript.
YouTube, for example, wouldn't work if we all disabled flash. Does this mean that YouTube is a poorly designed website? Are you going to argue with $1.65B?
YouTube is a "video sharing" site. That is, their "content" is video. Ideally, they might improve their site some by adding some descriptive text about the video for those that can't view it. But even so, this is not a very good example.
On the other hand, if a site was using Flash to provide their navigation links, and they don't give a way to access those links if the user does not have Flash, then yes, that is a VERY poorly designed site.
It comes down to accessibility. You can design the site in a such a way that it is accessible to all, and then enhance that for those with additional capabilities (JavaScript or Flash for example).
just out of interest. What are your thoughts on this whole web 2.0 thing? and the use of tools like dojo and google's gwt?
The growing popularity of these sorts of tools is the basis of my argument for the potential increased reliance on javascript in the future.
[edited by: danbot at 7:23 am (utc) on Oct. 17, 2006]
[w3schools.com...]
Note that it also says that these stats may be unreliable.
Yes, I do think JavaScript is getting it's second wind. Now it's up to the development community to use it correctly.
