3 ms·

No I don't, unfortunately. But I imagine that this figure will be fairly stable for the foreseeable future. There are always going to be people with disabilitie

by ebcode 8y ago

No I don't, unfortunately. But I imagine that this figure will be fairly stable for the foreseeable future. There are always going to be people with disabilities who turn off JavaScript for accessibility reasons, and privacy-conscious individuals and corporations that have it disabled. I think the parent comment's exaggeration of the number is bad form for web developers, and goes against the spirit of the web, which I believe is based on the principles of universal access and inclusiveness.

wafflesraccoon 8y ago
I have no data here, I would guess that number would be lower today than in 2013. My reasoning being the proliferation of smart phones in second and third world countries and the general trend of more web 2.0 users, though I fully accept that this is just an educated guess. As a web developer, for me the problem is that writing anything modern without JavaScript is a much harder task that only really benefits a small minority of users. I'm unfamiliar with any disabilities that would require JavaScript to be turned off but I could see this being a valid usecase.
- ebcode 8y ago
  Just found this from 2016: https://blockmetry.com/blog/javascript-disabled https://blockmetry.com/blog/javascript-disabled That post also implies that the figure is stable. Your second paragraph is a perfect example of the kind of attitude that I think is problematic. Yes it's more work to accommodate non-JS users. But so is building ramps for people in wheelchairs. The discrimination gets "baked in" to your/our development processes, and you/we justify the discrimination based on the idea that the only ones who will suffer from it are a "small minority". It's like assuming that everyone uses a mouse. Clearly some don't, and if we develop the web based on that assumption, we're going to leave a lot of folks in the lurch. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard[0]. [0]https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist
joshwcomeau 8y ago
Could you elaborate on the a11y benefits to disabling JS?
- jazzyjackson 8y ago
  This is a shot in the dark as I don't use any a11y tools, but, when you load sites and block javascript, you often gets much simpler markup, which is useful for finding the content you want your screenreader to read.

by ebcode 8y ago

wafflesraccoon 8y ago

I have no data here, I would guess that number would be lower today than in 2013. My reasoning being the proliferation of smart phones in second and third world countries and the general trend of more web 2.0 users, though I fully accept that this is just an educated guess. As a web developer, for me the problem is that writing anything modern without JavaScript is a much harder task that only really benefits a small minority of users. I'm unfamiliar with any disabilities that would require JavaScript to be turned off but I could see this being a valid usecase.

ebcode 8y ago
Just found this from 2016: https://blockmetry.com/blog/javascript-disabled https://blockmetry.com/blog/javascript-disabled That post also implies that the figure is stable. Your second paragraph is a perfect example of the kind of attitude that I think is problematic. Yes it's more work to accommodate non-JS users. But so is building ramps for people in wheelchairs. The discrimination gets "baked in" to your/our development processes, and you/we justify the discrimination based on the idea that the only ones who will suffer from it are a "small minority". It's like assuming that everyone uses a mouse. Clearly some don't, and if we develop the web based on that assumption, we're going to leave a lot of folks in the lurch. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard[0]. [0]https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist https://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist

joshwcomeau 8y ago

Could you elaborate on the a11y benefits to disabling JS?

jazzyjackson 8y ago
This is a shot in the dark as I don't use any a11y tools, but, when you load sites and block javascript, you often gets much simpler markup, which is useful for finding the content you want your screenreader to read.