

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

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?<p>EDIT: Clarifying text.
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uuoc
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
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.

------
CPops
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.

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dmazin
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.

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cancelbubble
JavaScript disabled on Yahoo home page:

[http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/10/how-
many-...](http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/10/how-many-users-
have-javascript-disabled/)

"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-...](http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2010/10/followup-
how-many-users-have-javascript-disabled/)

