Before I start posting up any jQuery stuff I feel compelled first to do my Accessibility public service announcement piece, not least because I know of at least two people who it will make happy.
Before going absolutely crazy with the shininess made possible through the various JavaScript frameworks and effects libraries to bling up your site to the nth degree please please please bear this in mind…
If your user has JavaScript disabled for any reason they will not see what ever it is you are trying to do.
This is a big deal and it does need considering; no matter how shiney you can make your site, remember that not everyone has JavaScript and more importantly for those developing corporate/commercial sites there is legislation in place in a number of countries that means that you can’t over rely on JavaScript for your site’s functionality, such as site navigation that only works if you have JavaScript enabled.
And before you say – well they should turn it on, remember that not every one can turn it on – Screen readers may be able to deal with some JavaScript but they aren’t good at dealing with instances where part of the content is being updated as with AJAX.
Progressive Enhancement rather than ‘Graceful’ Degradation is the way to go – In my experience the degradation has been anything but graceful. Start with a site that doesn’t rely on bells and whistles for a smooth user experience – this isn’t easy, which is why we have information architects and user experience architects to go and do all those time consuming things like talking to users, doing heuristic evaluations – things that just eat into that all precious code-hacking time. Then when you have a site that works well, then you can go and add a little extra polish – and I do mean a little – too much can be distracting and just frustrate your users.
Well said alice! Progressive Enhancement…Progressive Enhancement….Progressive Enhancement….Progressive Enhancement…Progressive Enhancement!
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