1) How important is it for the site to be accessible without javascript? I’m using a lot of ajax. I converted most of the site to be accessible without js, but the effort involved left me wondering if it was worth it.
2) What are the sort of scenarios (that occur fairly often) in which javascript might be turned off? (apart from people being paranoid and turning off js)
I’m developing the website that caters exclusively to the students in my university.I know that most (99%) of the users of the site will access it through a normal web-browser (no screen readers, or mobiles etc.)
I see that even large sites like digg, reddit simply stop working when I turn off js, without any attempt to provide html only access. Even in SO, it isn’t possible to vote or view comments without javascript (though there are some nice error messages shown)
Edit: SEO is not a major concern, since it a very niche website, and marketing is done by other means. And right now, it has been indexed and is the first result when searching for the site name.
The most common non-accessible non-paranoid reason why JS would be disabled is when search engine bots come to index the content. You need to be able to handle that if you want to be listed properly on search engines.
EDIT for your edit: Fair enough. It really depends on your site’s features. If it’s a primarily informational site, then requiring JS is absurd. If it’s more of a web application, then not requiring makes it much harder to use. Make the informational parts (if any) as accessible as possible, and do what you want with the rest.