Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

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With respect, I feel you are wrong. I browse the web with my iPad more than I browse it with my laptop. There is no way that I can run Flash on this device. There are now a significant numbers of folks who are doing the same as me.

If you have to use Flash, then that's fine. But the author of the article is right IMO. You need to provide a compelling reason for me to hop off my iPad and boot up my workstation/laptop to look at your website.

I have long considered that Unobtrusive Javascript to be one of the best paradigms for websites. It shouldn't be that hard to do. In fact, even in web applications there should be a clear seperation of content and behaviour, just as there is to seperate content and style. I was looking at a VMware product the other day that does ITSM, and it was the most god-awful mix of bad Javascript and HTML that I was most surprised. Not only did it not use Javascript in a sensible way (ala jquery, YUI, etc.), but it used stupid tricks like document.all - and in fact the webpages that it loaded entirely relied on Javascript working.

Therefore, I submit to you that by not designing your websites with Unobtrusive Javascript, that you are a. causing accessibility issues (and NOT just for disabled users), and b. you probably haven't developed your website very well anyway.

Please, I urge you to convince your users WHY they need to turn on Javascript to use your site. If you can't provide a compelling case, then I'd suggest that you probably don't have a good reason to require it!

Yes, the Flash analogy was probably a poor one considering the ubiquity of iOS - you can no longer make the argument about not having to cater to people without Flash, because at this point there are so many of them.

I think the same can be applied to requiring Javascript however. Personally, I've never seen a website that delivers content that absolutely needed it. Certainly the ones that do use it well do it to enhance the site you are browsing, but if you turn off the Javascript then you only have a slightly less full featured experience.

If you can't access a website because Javascript is turned off, then I think you are overcomplicating things anyway. There are obviously cases where it is required, but as the author states, it should be pretty easy to explain why you need to enable scripting!

"If you can't access a website because Javascript is turned off, then I think you are overcomplicating things anyway."

Take Lifehacker as an example: http://lifehacker.com/

What about their content requires JavaScript? Absolutely nothing. You have to enable scripts from three different places to see the content. The irony is that this website is called LifeHacker, for people who like to hack things (but turning off Javascript is just pure sorcery)

Lifehacker is a great example:

- click search, it drops down a search bar without reloading the page. Fast, nice.

- actually do the search - updates in place.

- on the sidebar, no reload for switching between "most popular" and "latest"

- ok lets read an article. Ah, selecting one loads the article into the pane, so I dont lose my place in the search on the side - lovely.

- Commenting: done in line, has inline font selection, I can include a picture or URL. Very nice experience.

- Oh, and 2 of my friends read lifehacker according to their Facebook plugin. Interesting - I didnt know they read that, I must mention it to them.

-click search, it drops down a search bar without reloading the page. Fast, nice.

I posit that the search bar should be static, that is, always visible. It actually took me a while to find out that I was supposed to click the little magnifying glass.

- actually do the search - updates in place. Again, confusing. It wasn't immediately apparent that the search results actually displayed below the search bar.

- on the sidebar, no reload for switching between "most popular" and "latest" This is a good use case for Javascript. However, if Javascript is not present why would it not default to just opening separate pages for each of the tabs?

- Commenting: again, why does it need Javascript? Slashdot commenting system works just fine without Javascript, as an example.

I'm not questioning WHY they are using Javascript - obviously, you are getting plenty of use from that method. I am questioning why it is necessary to have those features to view content?

Bullshit.

For a start, I dont think we should be second guessing their design. No doubt they have the customer development, usage figures, A/B tests, design tests, etc, to know that this is right for them.

But if you think a static version would be better (for most people), you're dreaming. At this point I suspect there's no point continuing the conversation - we have dramatically different world views if you think there's a comparison.

So the remaining question is, should they also have a no-javascript version for the 2% of people who turn off JS? Since it costs them double the effort, I can see why they chose not to.

"For a start, I dont think we should be second guessing their design"

Really? I guess you are right that this conversation is over. I'm sorry, but Lifehacker is not the end-all-be-all design mecca of the 21st century, quite the contrary, in fact. I only picked on the Javascript issue -- there are plenty more issues to discuss if you want to discuss design.

It's not about 2% of the population who don't use Javascript. It's about the fact that they're doing something fundamentally wrong if they require Javascript for displaying a simple web page with some content.

I just reread my previous comment and I apologize for how aggressively I came across. I guess it's hard to say "I disagree incredibly strongly" in a non-aggressive way, but that wasn't what I intended.

I'm not saying it's the be-all-and-end-all at all, there are lots of design problems. But arguing UX design with someone who believes sites shouldn't be using JS? It's just not a credible position.

Simple web pages are not simple. What makes them simple is that the complexity is hidden. JS is a major part of hiding that complexity, whether it's for preloading data, "don't make me click", or just hiding away things you don't need yet.

The search is a great example: I suspect almost nobody uses search, and I also suspect that those who use search use it a great deal. I suspect that Lifehacker has those "where do people click" charts that show them that information, and that as a result they made it powerful, but decided against giving it a whole bar.

Likewise comments. They hid away most of the commenting chrome because 99% of people dont comment, and they want to engage them with the existing comments.

There is no such thing as "a simple web page with some content". It is naive to think that it is, and I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that it shows that you have not spent significant time working on web UX issues in a cross-browser environment.

It's not that folks are upset about the use of Javascript - it's that you are required to have it to view content. I personally love well designed Javascript - it makes the user experience better and my life easier. But if someone turns off Javascript, they should have a degraded experience, not NO experience!

I disagree with saying "should" here. It's to do with business priorities. How many resources should go into making "they should have a degraded experience, not no experience" true. Well, how many customers will they gain, and how much more money will they make.

Don't forget that LifeHacker is part of Gawker. There's about a dozen sites in that network, probably all using the same codebase. What proportion of Jezebel readers do you think use NoScript?

The answer to that's "none" because they can't view the site with no script turned on :-) what a business should do and what they actually do are, unfortunately two different things. I wouldn't call life hacker a paragon on good design, but then I don't frequent that site very often. And, for the record, I don't use no script, or browse with JavaScript turned off! :-)

I doubt there is a good value proposition for Lifehacker to implement something that works with NoScript. Saying that they should do it, without that, makes no sense.

> The irony is that this website is called LifeHacker, for people who like to hack things (but turning off Javascript is just pure sorcery)

AFAIK, lifehacker shares a codebase with Gawker, Jezebel, Gizmodo, and a few other sites. How many Jezebel readers use NoScript?

Lifehacker is a terrible offender. Any of their pages contains the source code of the relevant content enclosed in a javascript object. I could just eval() the contents of the right <script> tag, append the created object to the DOM and get a readable page.

One of the big ones I can think of is that the web is becoming a system of platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. are all platforms, when I build web application it is almost guaranteed that my app will be a JavaScript based UI that couples those platforms services into a work flow with my own platform in some novel way. The way we build apps is changing they are becoming UI's that front end the cloud where the cloud is an assortment of services that provide data and content from different sources. JavaScript is a key enabler in the new web as a platform.

"Personally, I've never seen a website that delivers content that absolutely needed it."

Really? Etherpad, Google Wave, Google Docs. Every HTML5 game I've ever seen. Aviary, Picnik, Picozu. etc.

I generally agree with the point that most sites that present text to a screen don't absolutely NEED JS to work, but there are a myriad of apps out there that do.

I don't disagree with you in any way :-) these are web apps, not just plain websites with something like a commenting system.

Even with these web apps, I think its best to explain why JavaScript is needed. Except for google analytics, I'm still a huge fan of Unobtrusive JavaScript, if only because it makes for cleaner site organisation and code separation.

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