JavaScript required for basic textual info? TRY AGAIN
Part of Accessibility
Author(s) and publish date
- By:
-
-
Dan Connolly
-
- Published:
Sam says he's Online and Airborne. "Needless to say, this is seriously cool." I'll say! But when I follow the link to details from the service provider, I get:
Sorry. You must have JavaScript enabled to view this page. Click the BACK button below or enable JavaScript in your browser preferences and click TRY AGAIN.Let's turn that around, shall we? Sorry, if you're a network provider and you want my business, read up on unobtrusive javascript (aka the rule of least power), go BACK to work on your web site design and TRY AGAIN.
Strange. I tried going there like Dan did, with and without Javascript enabled. I got no error message from Firefox 3.
Dan, are you using IE6 still? ;-)
rick
No, Rick went to the gogo website: gogo - no javascript
Since installing noscript, I, too, am surprised how many web sites rely on JS vs how little I care to visit them.
I also got sorry message with FF2 and JS disabled, it is not IE specific (I guess you have followed link from here, not link from page where it links).
As a matter of fact, vast sections of web are hardly or not at all accessible without JS, images, Flash, Java...etc., even though these technologies are there used to present basically simple textual information and, in extreme (but not infrequent) cases NO desired information whatsoever, just additional visual effects, advertisements or other irrelevant data along with desired content.
Moreover not all of these pages are polite enough to state what is required, ie not only user blocking, let's say, flash animations see any content or navigation controls, but not even message to turn flash on and TRY AGAIN :)
Related to this is pratice of presenting simple text in .pdf/.doc.
This is however only partially due to ignorance of designers, as they often only do what they are told to do, and that is to actually make obtrusive, hideous pages polluted with flash, scripts, images...
What's bad in javascript you all guys care so much about it?
I mean yes, sites must support javascript turned off, but then why average guy turns it off?
Sergey, Javascript is often a resource hog and an attack vector. It's too easy for something bad to happen through Javascript for knowledgeable people to trust it.
I agree, JavaScript not something you can always trust, but by simply turning it off and/or complaining to the web developer about using it and providing warnings (hey, at least they provide warnings, as opposed to your page rendering differently than intended with you having no knowledge of it - minus the aesthetic changes of course) you avoid bringing up the idea of helping to teach the average users basic understanding of JavaScript and what you (as a knowledgeable person) do to protect yourself from malicious code. Turning it off is one way, knowing how to control your system (ctrl-alt-del, anti-virus, logs, non-root logins, etc.) is better.
JS isn't necessary for text input though, is the point. The sad fact is that the way the web has gone, which is due in part to those writing webpages not being taught to hand-code properly (they're just using code-generating design applications, or others templates, to do the coding for them) nor being taught the basics of things like secure systems practices, is a match to how society in general is overtly wasteful and more interested in shallow looks than actual relevant content.
'Presentation' is but one layer in the OSI model, and it isn't supposed to mean 'visually stimulating' in a advertising / package design kind of way.
This is a problem with software development too........but that is another topic.
I'd say it is very obvious that (again, as with all else) when overtly complex things are used, when simple things suffice, it is encouraged so as to provide a lot of traffic within which, in this case, malware can hide and move around far more easily.
These days, if you want to use the web without having more resource-hogging sw running on your system, then you need two computers or at least two OSs - one to use the web, and one for all your software and other applications.
Yes,I agree with you
JS isn't necessary for text input though, is the point. The sad fact is that the way the web has gone, which is due in part to those writing webpages not being taught to hand-code properly (they're just using code-generating design applications, or others templates, to do the coding for them) nor being taught the basics of things like secure systems practices, is a match to how society in general is overtly wasteful and more interested in shallow looks than actual relevant content.