Javascript on / off statistics

any good statistical studies over time?

[chewy]

I'm working with a shoppingcart that seems to get a bit funky when JS is turned off.

I see that some stats show about 10% of surfers are turning JS off - but stats seem to be site specific and not run-of-the-mill so I have no way to determine if the "average" shopper is surfing this way. Average for me in this case is mom and pop shops - probably older computers, dialup connections etc.

I've found this link: [w3schools.com...] that shows this over time.

please put up other links that show this over time or other sites if possible.

discussion - is this increasing - are there known apps or practices that will change this +/- going forward?

tx

-c

[Bernard Marx]

My current opinion, compiled completely from other people's opinions, is that Mom & Pop browse exclusively with Internet Explorer, because that big blue "e" is "The Internet". Neither would know how to deactivate Javascript, even if they knew of its existence.

I'm currently working on a shopping cart scenario, and it does rely on JS. The reason for this is that the client had a look at some of the ready-made webshops available, and was taken by the snappy reactivity of a particular one - one that turns out to be a heavily framed concoction, reliant on JS. I have to make a similar one that incorporates all the clients needs (which the example doesn't).

If one is selling to M&P, I reckon the percentage shut out by use of JS is much, much lower than 10%. This may be over-compensated in terms of sales by the snappier interface.

In a perfect world, a webshop should be able to degrade nicely for no-scripters. How's about an XMLHTTP front end, backed up by standard full-refreshing pages?

The trouble with these script-disabled statistics is that they don't account for typical catastrophe theory style scenarios. A scripting exploit dangerous enough, prevalent enough, and with wide enough mainstream media coverage, could cause 80% of the planet to turn off scripting tomorrow evening (especially if shown how to do it on Oprah).

I may receive a fatal blow from a falling icicle on the way home (it happens about once a year in this town).

[Don_Hoagie]

I would pay good money to watch you turn off javascript in Oprah. Oh, the tabloids!

[chewy]

Plenty of options with the cart, just the client wants it a certain way and I want to be able to tell them with confidence that the "JS off" scenario is less than X% based on blah blah...

watch out for that icicle!

[Bernard Marx]

Just tell 'em "Bernard says s'alright".

..ouch!

[tedster]

I'd first assume that javascript-off is going to be a higher percentage for a technical audience. Since W3Schools is showing 10%, and their audience is technical, I think you can extrapolate from there to your client's target market. If it's the average consumer, you will be several notches under 10%.

You can always have a notice triggered for the non-js browser. The tecchie will appreciate knowing immediately what they need to change to make a purchase. I sometimes forget whether I'm js-off or js-on in the moment and a click that just creates an unknown problem for me makes me wonder whether it's bad browser sniffing going on or what.

[Agitprop]

We get about 5% arriving with Javascript off, who are gently reminded that they need Javascript to use our site. From the logs we can see they reload the page with Javascript enabled (.js files are loaded) so basically 100% of our visitors have Javascript on.

The site in question uses Javascript for some complex calculations - which visitors came to our site for in the first place... our competitor all use PHP, but we released our code under the Creative Common.