Supporting non Javascript websites

[Rakesh]

Hi folks,

I would be interested in experiences/opnions about supporting non JS.

My current. commercial, company insists that we need to maintain non JS functionality on our site. What this has done is complicate enormously the front end and the back end.

Going forward I would like to propose moving our architecture to GWT but that would mean losing non JS support (but gaining so much more in other areas).

What do others do? Maintain a separate site? Choose not to support non JS browsers (perhaps showing a page to call instead)?

BTW, according to the stats we make zero sales from non JS visitors - and it seems all the visitors are from our won testing dept!!! Somehow the upper levels of business have got it into their heads that non JS version of our site is mandatory (maybe even illegal not to do so).

Thanks

Rakesh

[Robert Casto]

You could try to make the case based on something they understand.

MONEY

Tell them how much more it will cost, wasted time, and that no sales come from it. If you lay it out in a very logical way such that they understand it is a waste of time and money and won't affect the bottom line, then you have a chance.

Or, you need to do some asking around to figure out why the company wants non-JS functionality. They might have a good reason or it could be something deeply seated that will be very hard to root out.

I used to work for a company that mandated IE6 compatibility. It caused nothing but trouble with the development. It was to ensure everyone could continue to use the application, but there was a catch. Users used IE6 because that was the only browser that the site would work with. So of course that was what all the reports would show and thus management thought they had to support that. There was no discussion of regressing nicely or changing requirements to use a new browser. That site was stuck in IE6 and nothing could be done to free it from those shackles.

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[Rakesh]

well its certainly true the foundations are probably shaky.

From what I can gather, it seems to be an interpretation of the Disability and Discrimination Act (DDA).

Fortunately, the senior architect spoke to me earlier and says he is close to having the decision reversed. The only down side is that we probably aren't DDA compliant anyway!!

Rakesh

[Ryan Schipper]

Hi Rakesh,

By the reference to the DDA, I'm assuming you're in Australia.

By law, all services and information provided through the Internet
require DDA compliance (where reasonable). This is not surprising
considering the statistics: in 1988, 16% of Australians were disabled
(http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/9ba0bb65ce08ccc6ca2570820081db23/1618215db8a5c6abca25692d0083019d!OpenDocument).
Given the increasing capabilities in curative and palliative medicine
in 1st world countries, this number is only going to climb.

There are a lot of resources available online to assist you in
designing and implementing DDA-compliant web sites.

Click here for more info:
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/standards/www_3/www_3.html

-- Ryan Schipper

[Matthew Farwell]

Just for information, it's called the DDA in the UK as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability_Discrimination_Act_1995

Matthew.

[clay]

Unless there are special circumstances I don't understand, I think it
is safe to require basic JavaScript support on the client for pretty
much any web site. I don't see more of a technical issue to discuss.

However, it sounds like your superiors want that functionality anyway.
I'd try to discuss with them and understand their needs. On the other
hand, if they aren't willing to discuss it or explain it, or they are
determined to have that feature, then within the scope of your
employment it's really not your choice and you should do they need you
to do.

[Reinier Zwitserloot]

If you want to keep that, you should absolutely stick with the jQuery + servlets + additive JS model.

Build your site as if javascript didn't exist, then use jQuery to improve on things. Add event listeners to buttons, which preventDefault and then do the same thing but nicer, with ajax calls. Add CSS classes which do nothing CSS-wise, then add a jquery javascript line to for example hide a block which gets scrolled down (animated) when clicking a header, etcetera, etcetera.

The design comes out nice, you can claim your site is very accessible (screen readers and the like can't really handle fancy javascript stuff, how would they do it?), and its not a hard model to develop for.