Should you design websites that require JavaScript in this day & age?

Question

It\'s fall of 2008, and I still hear developers say that you should not design a site that requires JavaScript.

I understand that you should develop sites that degra

Answer 1

You should never design a public site to rely on ANY technology/platform. The user agent may not display colour (think screen readers), display graphics (again, think screen readers or text only browsers such as links), etc.

Design your site for the lowest common denominator and then progressively enhance it to add support for specific technologies.

To answer the question directly: No, you cannot assume your users have Javascript, so your site should work without it. Once it does, enhance it with Javascript.