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This post does nothing to address the biggest reason people might have Javascript disabled: security. If I'm browsing through Tor (or whatever), I'm not going t

This post does nothing to address the biggest reason people might have Javascript disabled: security. If I'm browsing through Tor (or whatever), I'm not going to turn on Javascript to use your site. If your site doesn't work without it, you've lost a customer. Granted, people who disable javascript are obviously vastly outnumbered, but just saying "fuck you" to security conscious (and most likely tech-savvy) users seems like a mistake.

robbyking 13y ago
I think the real question is which group is larger: the customers I'll gain by enabling a feature that requires JavaScript or the customers I'll lose because they're unable to view a feature that requires JavaScript. According to developer.yahoo.com[1], > After crunching the numbers, we found a consistent rate of JavaScript-disabled requests hovering around 1% of the actual visitor traffic[...]. I work for a medium sized company that version tests almost every change we make, and in the end the version that wins is the feature with the higher conversion rate. [1] http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-javascript-disabled-14121.html http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-javascript-d...
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  1% is a small percentage but can make up quite a large number of people.
  - robbyking 13y ago
    I completely agree, but if a version test wins by more than a few percentage points, it usually makes sense to implement the feature even if it does make the page inaccessible to 1% of users.
    - kintamanimatt 13y ago
      I honestly doubt you'd be saying that if you were part of that 1%!
      - ewang1 13y ago
        Except here, the 1% chose to be in the 1%.
- Amadou 13y ago
  NoScript is the 4th most popular add-on for firefox with 2 million users. ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ ) Conversion rate is a limited metric. It misses the entire concept of word-of-mouth. Conversion rate can't measure people who don't show up in the first place. I expect NoScript users to be more sophisticated "power users" - the kind of users that regular users go to for advice. If they aren't using your site then they will never recommend it to their more naive and more easily converted friends.
CurtMonash 13y ago
I browse with NoScript on. When I seem to need Javascript, I may: 1. Turn it on for that site. (But this can be problematic if there are 15 different domains to turn it on for, only 12 of which are about showing me ads.) 2. Use IEtab in Firefox (not working as well recently). 3. Paste the URL into a different browser. I use IE mainly for my several least favorite sites and services -- Facebook, WebEx, etc. So I'm unlike to mess things up too badly by viewing some JavaScript-heavy page in there. 4. Live without the site that demands all the JavaScript. Now, one might hypothesize that a security-conscious, ad-hating web surfer as myself isn't a bit loss for most consumer websites. So perhaps it all works out in the end. But there also are a few companies that would pay a lot of money to have me look at their websites -- a fact that I infer from them paying PR people to attempt to get my attention -- and miss out solely because it's too hard to beat the Javascript requirement.
drdaeman 13y ago
<sarcasm>But security-aware people are negligible minority!</sarcasm>

robbyking 13y ago

I think the real question is which group is larger: the customers I'll gain by enabling a feature that requires JavaScript or the customers I'll lose because they're unable to view a feature that requires JavaScript. According to developer.yahoo.com[1], > After crunching the numbers, we found a consistent rate of JavaScript-disabled requests hovering around 1% of the actual visitor traffic[...]. I work for a medium sized company that version tests almost every change we make, and in the end the version that wins is the feature with the higher conversion rate. [1] http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-javascript-disabled-14121.html http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/many-users-javascript-d...

kintamanimatt 13y ago
1% is a small percentage but can make up quite a large number of people.
- robbyking 13y ago
  I completely agree, but if a version test wins by more than a few percentage points, it usually makes sense to implement the feature even if it does make the page inaccessible to 1% of users.
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago
    I honestly doubt you'd be saying that if you were part of that 1%!
    - ewang1 13y ago
      Except here, the 1% chose to be in the 1%.
Amadou 13y ago
NoScript is the 4th most popular add-on for firefox with 2 million users. ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ ) Conversion rate is a limited metric. It misses the entire concept of word-of-mouth. Conversion rate can't measure people who don't show up in the first place. I expect NoScript users to be more sophisticated "power users" - the kind of users that regular users go to for advice. If they aren't using your site then they will never recommend it to their more naive and more easily converted friends.

CurtMonash 13y ago

I browse with NoScript on. When I seem to need Javascript, I may: 1. Turn it on for that site. (But this can be problematic if there are 15 different domains to turn it on for, only 12 of which are about showing me ads.) 2. Use IEtab in Firefox (not working as well recently). 3. Paste the URL into a different browser. I use IE mainly for my several least favorite sites and services -- Facebook, WebEx, etc. So I'm unlike to mess things up too badly by viewing some JavaScript-heavy page in there. 4. Live without the site that demands all the JavaScript. Now, one might hypothesize that a security-conscious, ad-hating web surfer as myself isn't a bit loss for most consumer websites. So perhaps it all works out in the end. But there also are a few companies that would pay a lot of money to have me look at their websites -- a fact that I infer from them paying PR people to attempt to get my attention -- and miss out solely because it's too hard to beat the Javascript requirement.

drdaeman 13y ago

<sarcasm>But security-aware people are negligible minority!</sarcasm>