Why Bother?

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Scripting in web pages has done a lot of good. It enables web pages to react to users' actions instantly - increasing the speed and usefulness of pages, and taking load off the server.

The Problem

The downside to all this is that a lot of web developers have got into the habit of presuming scripting exists on the client - to a stage where many, many commercial sites absolutely require scripting to even view the homepage.

However, a reasonably large number of users for one reason or another do not have scripting in their browser. According to thecounter.com, this is currently (December 2001) around 12% of all web users.

The same site also shows that Netscape 4 is at 4% - a browser a lot of developers spend hours and hours supporting, but then totally forget people with scripting disabled - despite the fact that there are over three times as many without scripting than there are NS4 users - make any sense to you?

The Reasons

Some of these users are people who have become fed up of the number of sites abusing scripting - such as opening popup advertisement windows without the users' permission - and disabled it in their browser. There are also quite a few users who are concerned about security - Internet Explorer doesn't exactly have a wonderful security record, and disabling scripting can protect you from some exploits.

Other than this, there are some people who prefer - or are forced to use - browsers that simply do not have scripting capabilities. These include text-only browsers such as Lynx, older browsers, web-on-TV devices, non-visual browsers, mobile devices - some of which will increase in numbers in the coming years.

The Aim

So not only will making your pages work without scripting open your site up to a wider audience currently, it will also to some extent future-proof your pages - and without hurting backwards-comparability - and all without all that much work.

I am most definitely not saying all scripting is evil, and it should be eradicated from the web. I'm just suggesting simple alternatives to cater for people who browse the web without scripting. This can also bring benefits to people who do have scripting enabled.

These articles are not aimed at people who make "web applications" - purely script-driven web pages often used in intranets, that are not content-based. They are aimed at normal, everyday web sites - online shops, news sites, etc, etc - and aimed at making these types of pages work for everyone.

I'm not trying to be a know-it-all web god - I'm far from perfect, and I fell into the trap of requiring scripting without thinking about it. I just followed what everyone else was doing, never giving much of a thought to usability.