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Re: How many people switch off javascript?

for

From: Sandy Clark
Date: Aug 31, 2004 6:06AM


Keep in mind that thecounter.com, can only generate stats for sites that use
its counters. If anyone has a better place for getting information like
that, I would love to find it.


Sandy Clark
http://www.shayna.com
CF Pretty Accessible at http://www.shayna.com/blog
Now offering 4 days Hands on CSS training October 11-14th. Rockville, MD.
For more information go to:
http://www.teratech.com/training/oc_classes.cfm#css
-----Original Message-----
From: victoria.hamill [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 8:03 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] How many people switch off javascript?







The situation is that there are 4 levels in the hierarchy, and they wanted
at least one drop down.

My menu code uses javascript to generate the whole thing, with the effect
that if javascript is turned off it loads nothing, hence the need for a
duplicate menu in noscript tags as back-up.
It hadn't occurred to me to load it as a list, and then just add some
javascript and CSS to act on it afterwards to control the appearance of it.
As you say, this would have the effect that by default it is still
generating the links, which is still perfectly accessible. This is an option
I might explore some more, so thanks for the pointer. I won't need one built
for me though, but thanks for the offer of assistance :-)

I'm a bit disappointed in the 5% rate cited by Sandy, I had a real feeling
it was much higher than that! I have plenty of other arguments against the
text-only version though, particularly now I have some more ideas on how to
create the menu to play with :-)

Victoria
-----------------------------------------------------
Victoria Hamill
NetInfo
Phone: (44) 1628-687863
Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
URL: http://www.netinfo.com
- More than meets the eye



"lists38"
<lists@onlinetool
s.org> To
"WebAIM Discussion List"
31/08/2004 12:33
cc

Please respond to Subject
"WebAIM Re: [WebAIM] How many people switch
Discussion List" off javascript?
<webaim-forum@lis
t.webaim.org>










Some more information might help.

How many levels should your navigation have? Recommended is one popup level
tops, as otherwise it'll be a mouse-pointer nightmare.

I could do a version for you if needed. Generally I pray that anybody using
or offering DHTML menus to clients should very well know how to do them and
what their drawbacks are. document.write browsersniffing scripts must die
quickly and get burried deep in the woods.


> Thanks to both of you for these pointers.
> The only way I've ever managed to get a collapsible menu to work is
> through javascript, and the code I use is a massive javascript file
> that is required even in order to load up the menu items. I have used
> tags to enclose a tabular menu in the past, but I'm not
> doing that
anymore
> as it simply loads 2 massive menus instead of one!
> I'll take a look at these examples to see if there is anything I can
glean
> from them to build a better menu, which may help whether I can
> convince our client to do without the text-based site or not!
>
> Victoria
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Victoria Hamill
> NetInfo
> Phone: (44) 1628-687863
> Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> URL: http://www.netinfo.com
> - More than meets the eye
>
>
>
> "lists38"
> <lists@onlinetool
> s.org>
To
> "WebAIM Discussion List"
> 31/08/2004 12:05
>
cc
> "WebAIM Discussion List"
> Please respond to
> "WebAIM
Subject
> Discussion List" Re: [WebAIM] How many people
switch
> <webaim-forum@lis off javascript?
> t.webaim.org>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> That would make a lot more sense if they were turned off the first
> time, though.
>
>
>
>>
>> Hi Victoria,
>>
>> I don't have any numbers but one solution you can suggest is to
>> include
> an
>> option to switch JavaScript menus on and off. An example can be found
>> at http://www.darlington.gov.uk/Generic/Profiles/Visitors.htm. That
>> way the client gets what they want and the user gets to the content!
>>
>> Thanks, Henny
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: victoria.hamill [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
>> Sent: 31 August 2004 11:06
>> To: WebAIM Discussion List
>> Subject: [WebAIM] How many people switch off javascript?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> One of our clients has requested a text-only version of his website
>> so that he can avoid thinking about accessibility on his main site.
>> I'm trying to put together a list of arguments against this as I
>> completely disagree with the whole notion of building a flat and
>> lifeless alternative because you want to have a whizzy menu etc. on
>> the main one. I know that the idea of text-only is unpopular among
>> people here as I've seen a lot of outrage whenever it is mentioned.
>>
>> One of my arguments is to be the number of people who switch off
>> javascript when they view sites, thus making the use of javascript as
>> a navigation tool unreliable. I believe this number is quite high,
>> and is far from restricted to people with disabilities, but was
>> wondering if there was a resource anyone knew of where I could find a
>> statistic?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Victoria
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> Victoria Hamill
>> NetInfo
>> Phone: (44) 1628-687863
>> Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> URL: http://www.netinfo.com
>> - More than meets the eye
>>
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>
>
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> Chris Heilmann
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Chris Heilmann
The mighty pen: http://icant.co.uk/
Learn to let go! http://ltlg.icant.co.uk
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

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