JavaScript Accessibility Matters!
Posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007
About a month ago I wrote about how a few high profile sites locked users out or prevented the use of parts of their site because they relied on JavaScript being available. Since publishing the post a couple of interesting things happened to reinforce to me that JavaScript accessibility matters.
The Nationwide Understands
The power of a little blog was shown the other day when I received a comment from Ian Lloyd (of Accessify and The Web Standards Project). While I have read Ian’s writing online, I had no idea that he worked for the Nationwide and was surprised to find this out in his comment and delighted to hear that he has referred the issue (users without JavaScript enabled could not access the login page to the online banking section) on to be dealt with.
For any large company, reacting to criticism from a relatively unknown blogger is quite unusual, but to do so with the grace that Ian did, especially resolving to look further into it, is fantastic. I understand what Ian said, legacy code could be at fault and it could be a long time before anything hits the main site due to the necessary processes of big business, but if the Nationwide are able to change this and allow access to the whole of their site without JavaScript being required then I will be pleased to claim a big victory for accessibility!
The People Have JavaScript Problems
It may seem to some people that 6% of users not using JavaScript is insignificant. Facebook claims to have 54 million active users, Hotmail advertises over 11 million unique users. 6% of those figures is 3 and a quarter million and over half a million users respectively, not insignificant figures.
These big numbers sound impressive, but they are also faceless numbers based on aggregated statistics and can start to mean nothing after a while. Over the last month, since publishing the original article, a few Internet users have drifted by my site driven by a few searches that prove being unable to use sites without JavaScript is confusing. In the last month I have had 4 visits from search engines with the query “facebook without javascript,” 3 visits from the search term “hotmail without javascript,” and 24 other visits from search terms involving the words JavaScript and either Facebook or Hotmail. These are real users that are finding it difficult or impossible to use a web site because it relies on JavaScript for certain functions.
Conclusion
There are users out there who do not have JavaScript enabled. It is possible, with the right mindset (like Ian Lloyd and Nationwide), to consider this and create sites that do not rely on JavaScript for core functionality. Don’t exclude users by forgetting this.
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1November 20th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Lucy Says:Obviously not such a “little blog”!
Hope you’ll update us if/when Nationwide make the change …
2November 20th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Darren Says:Great work and a great method to show the issues that many users are suffering from.
3November 20th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Jem Says:I missed the original post but I’m glad you posted it, and I’m glad it has been noticed - if only for the fact that my browsing is regularly hampered by sites that don’t work with JavaScript disabled.
I turn it off for the majority of sites by choice, and if I can’t view content (at the very least) then there’s a problem there. I mentioned the issue once in relation to shoes.com and got feedback from the MD.. that was nice.
Anyway, here’s hoping this “little” blog keeps making waves.. ;)
4November 20th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Phil Says:Lucy: Thanks! But my statistics still tell me this is a little blog! It must have struck a nerve with the right person with this post though! I will of course keep you up to date here on this blog if any changes do come about, let’s hope so.
Darren: Thanks, sometimes talking about percentages and numbers takes the reality away from the situation. Real life examples and real life people finding problems bring it closer to home in my opinion.
Jem: I forgot that you surf without JavaScript, I’m sure I have read that on your blog before. It must be quite hard at times to continue without JavaScript as it would seem to me that a lot of sites do ignore users who have it disabled.
It is nice to receive a response as well. To know that people are listening and acting on user feedback helps you believe that there can be an accessible web, there are people that care.
Here’s to more waves!
5September 16th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
John Says:Hi. I stumbled on your site after Googling on “Object not supported by property or method” (I think - I’d lose this page if I went back and read the message I got) plus Hotmail (the applic I was trying to use) plus javascript (another message that came up). I’m not a techie and don’t understand what most of this means. All I know is that Hotmail keeps trapping me on the page I’m on, preventing me from going back to read new e-mails received, and I suspect it’s to do with my having set sensible security settings in IExplorer at the internet cafes I use. When I then try relaxing the settings to ‘Anything Goes for lurking script kiddies’ it seems to make no difference. Most of my search hits produce forum threads by developers talking in Martian to each other about how to do fancy tricks in javascript. I don’t want to write javascript programs, and wouldn’t know how to, I just want to use Hotmail (or live.co.uk, its new form) without it seizing up on me. Can anyone help?
6November 16th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Rasmus Says:“In the last month I have had 4 visits from search engines with the query “facebook without javascript,”… …These are real users that are finding it difficult or impossible to use a web site because it relies on JavaScript for certain functions.”
- This conclusion is wrong. You can’t tell the reason behind peoples search by their searchquery! - I for example came to this site trough the query “facebook without javascript”, but not because i am having trouble with facebook and javascript but because I as a webdesigner is interested in reading what other people thinks about this subject.