What is Progressive Enhancement?

Question

Jeff mentioned the concept of \'Progressive Enhancement\' when talking about using JQuery to write stackoverflow.

After a quick Google, I found a couple of high-leve

Answer 1

As you've said

To me, that seems a bit overkill, since viewing the site without Javascript will probably break most of it.

This isn't progressive enhancement. Progressive enhancement is when the site works perfectly without JavaScript or CSS, and then adding (layering) these extra technologies/code to increase the usability and functionality of the website.

The best example I can give is the tag input box on this website. With JavaScript turned off, it would still work allowing you to enter tags separated with a space. With JavaScript turned on, you get a drop down with suggestions of previous entries.

This is progressive enhancement.