Progressive enhancement / Graceful degradation and web applications

Question

Hello,

I am building a web application that uses a lot of Javascript. Now I am wondering does it make sense to make the application work without Javascript? I can understand for normal websites that you want to make sure everybody can use it but can you say the same of complex web applications?

I checked out some big web apps and it seems some do it and some don't. For example GMail has a basic version that works without Javascript.

If you look at Google Docs it doesn't work at all without Javascript. Creating an app like GDocs without Javascript is most likely not possible.

Is that a good standard to go by: if it's impossible to fall back to a non-Javascript working applicaiton you don't do it?

Answer 1

It really depends on what is your project about and who is your target audience.

For projects that are rather sites/pages than applications, there should be an option to browse through with JS disabled, but it's okay if only in read-only mode. This very site (SO) is an example of that approach.

For projects that are rather applications and involve very complex UI composition and dependencies, there is probably no other alternative. For instance, ASP.NET projects won't work without JavaScript but nobody would usually complain given the powerful abstraction it brings to play.