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Do you think no-JS users are OK to ignore?

5 points by forgotmypw3 ↗ HN
Whenever I bring up no-JS clients, for whatever reason, there are often comments that no-JS users are not worth catering to, because either there are too few of them, or they disable JS by choice, or that they just don't exist (as in response to a StOv question I posted recently.

Is there anyone out there that thinks that no-JS users are still important, regardless of why they happen to have JS disabled?

Why is the view that no-JS can be ignored so prevalent?

11 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 36.8 ms ] thread
forgotmypw3
Sometimes it feels like I am listening to a mechanic who is saying you don't really need to use 3rd gear, because you can just jump from 2nd to 4th, so he doesn't need to look into the funny noise the transmission makes.
[dead] tmccoy7198
Isn't in more like you're listening to a car owner who removed the 3rd gear from his vehicle and expects the mechanic to make the car work just as good without it?
throwaway77384
Isn't it just the same reason linux gaming is ignored?

People who have disabled JS intentionally are likely to be a tiny minority of security conscious users, yet, if your business is an almost 100% JS rendered webapp, why would you go through the cost of maintaining an html/css-only version?

This is of course beside the point that JS is indeed best used very carefully imho and I'd prefer an almost no-JS web, but the current market simply doesn't cater to the opinions of software dev types :/

levlaz
Yes. I think they’re ok to ignore. Modern web applications, for better or worse are written in JavaScript. If someone chooses to opt out of society (as small as that society might be), that is a personal choice that should be respected but not necessarily catered to.

Most software teams are under tight schedules, with fierce competition, and are trying their hardest to deliver some value to most people. Telling them to now rewrite their application to work without JavaScript is the equivalent to making things still compatible with IE6.

JohnFen
> Modern web applications, for better or worse are written in JavaScript.

As a non-JS user, I have no expectation that I can use web applications, so I don't disagree here.

However, most of the web does not consist of web applications. What about those sites? I don't see any compelling reasons (other than spite, maybe) for those sites to fail to work without JS.

levlaz
I couldn’t agree with you more. Sorry if this was not clear.

IMHO websites (as opposed to web apps) don’t need any JavaScript at all. Since the goal of most websites is to get as many as people as possible to see whatever content you have then you should absolutely make sure it looks decent and works well without JS.

ksaj
Folks like me who use Raspberry Pi for web surfing will also agree. There are far too many sites requiring javascript for things that definitely don't improve the user experience, and instead make the experience clumsy (reloading the text just because javascript wants to do something to it, for example) and slow as molasses.
maxbaines
I choose to browse with JS disabled, I'd say it depends on the page/site/service. For me if there is personnel value to the site i enable JS, if the page just fails. But if its something random a news/shopping site with another source i just close the page.
luckylion
Imho it depends on your target audience, monetization plan and amount of traffic.

Audience isn't tech-savvy? Ignore them.

Monetization depends on JS (ads served via js etc)? Ignore them.

If you have little traffic and few conversions, investing extra money in a good no-js UX might not be worth it. If you're getting lots of traffic, even a small increase in conversion might mean hundreds of sales a day which quickly makes a bit of development time worthwhile.

goohex
I wonder if making sure your site is readable without JS also has the effect of making your site more legible to screen dictation. I haven't met many web devs who make accessibility a primary concern. Mozilla seems to note that heavy reliance on JS can break accessibility.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility...

forgotmypw3
I asked a related question on StOv, and have been told that either "99.999999%" or "100.1%" of screen-reader users browse with JS enabled :D