[thelist] Percentage of users who turn off javascript

[Chris W. Parker]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Warbasse (info) [mailto:info at warbassedesign.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 7:55 AM
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: [thelist] Percentage of users who turn off javascript
>

> Based on my last post (scrollbars to activate button) what is
> the percentage of users who turn off Javascript?  I would be
> interested to know.

you may not like this answer, but the truth is, this questions and
questions like this (how many users do this?) cannot be accurately
answered.

this topic gets discussed all the time, while the answer is always, "the
best stats are your stats." in other words, you must know your audience.

here on thelist the percentage of people who knowingly turn off
javascript (as opposed to those who have browsers that do not support
javascript) might be a lot higher than the general population.

but let's do an experiment. if 0.5% of the general population of
internet users have javascript turned off, you could say that this
number is low enough that you can have a javascript enabled website and
not infringe on that many surfers. but what makes up a percentage? an
average? of course you say! but if one website (like evolt) has a high
amount of javascriptless users, while another website has a zero rate
for javascriptless users, the average of these two websites would
disproportionately skew your results.

the best thing to do is get a hold of old logs and see if those hold any
good information on your users surfing preferences. if that is not
possible, start recording what your users preferences are. then make
your decision based on the traffic you get.

i hope this has been helpful.

having said all that, i would say the number of non-javascript users is
low. but exactly how low i'm not sure.


chris.

p.s. why do you insist on doing this scroll thing that you mentioned in
the other thread?