Is the <noscript> tag outmoded?

Question

A lot of what I continue to read about graceful degradation applies to browsers that don't use JavaScript. But my own experience shows that it's no longer reasonable to expect a normal experience on the Internet without JS and CSS support. How much energy is it responsible to devote to degradation these days?

Watersick

Have you ever head of CSS Naked Day naked.dustindiaz.com? – Cyn

Answer 1

That really depends on your user base. If most of your users are lunch-time corporate visitor with js turned off then you should degrade. If you have a significant blind user base then you're best avoiding the rich interface.

Also don't forget about SEO and allowing bots to crawl through your site. For exmaple, if you're using a tabbed layout and the tab contents are only retrieved by a javascript ajax call then it's safe to assume that a crawler will not see it.

Ankylostomiasis

Answer 2

Check out this article from a list apart. It talks about progressive enhancement instead of graceful degradation. Instead of degrading the experience for users without a particular technology or users with accessibility issues, it focuses on starting with the basics (html) and progressing the user experience by utilizing what technologies the user has available.

With progressive enhancement you'll never need a noscript tag, since you don't assume the user has javascript enabled to begin with.

Grammarian

Just a different way of looking at the same thing IMO. I've always done it the "progressive enhancement" way, but referred to it as "graceful degradation". It is easier to code this way though. – Castaneda

It's a good technique with regard to workflow, yes. But in the long run, Rob Olmos (above) has a very good point. It depends who your users are. Otherwise, you stand the chance of spending a possibly-longer time making HTML and CSS do what JS could do right away. Granted, graceful degradation is a worse technique than either alternative. – Watersick