[thelist] JavaScript Disabled ? (WAS [OT] Terrible Websites)

Jackson Yee jyee at vt.edu
Tue Jul 30 20:30:01 CDT 2002


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Hardaker" <mike at angloinfo.com>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 03:21
Subject: [thelist] JavaScript Disabled ? (WAS [OT] Terrible Websites)


> There is one critical group of users who always search with JavaScript
disabled.
>
> It's called "The Search Engines".
>
> My favourite idiotic bit of coding is the one where a site's index.html is
> simply a JavaScript redirect that points different screen
> resolutions/browsers/IP groups to different pages. To a user with JavaScript
> turned off (such as a Search Engine) the site is a blank page with no links
to
> anywhere.

Most sites are good enough to use a meta refresh with a standard text link in
the body if they need to send you somewhere this way, but it is amazing how
many site designers ignore non-JavaScript users these days.  I happen to be an
IE user, so I have JavaScript disabled to kill popup windows, prevent security
exploits, and other such wonderful things.  If a particular site doesn't
function without JavaScript enabled, I wave good-bye to it and never go there
again... just like the search engines.

> I'd also take issue with the mention of "the amount of time spent on making
the
> site accessible to [Netscape/non-JavaScript users]". It only takes time if
you
> start out by designing a non-accessible site with lots of JavaScript and
then
> have to fix it.

Or if you should have the curse of inheriting some Dreamweaver pages to fix by
hand.  [shakes head]  Things are slowly getting better, but until the dominant
commerical entities start producing standards-compliant and accessible sites,
it's still an uphill battle for the rest of us.

Regards,
Jackson Yee
jyee at vt.edu
http://www.jacksonyee.com/




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