Question

What is the best thing to do when a user doesn’t have JavaScript enabled? What is the best way to deliver content to that kind of user? What is the best way to keep a site readable by search engines?

I can think of two ways to achieve this, but do not know what is better (or if a 3rd option is better):

1. Rely on the meta-refresh tag to redirect users to a non-javascript version of site. Wrap the meta-refresh tag in a noscript tag so it will be ignored by those with javascript.
2. Rely on an iframe tag located within the body tag to deliver a non-javascript version of site. Wrap the iframe tag in a a noscript tag so it will be ignored by those with javascript.

I would also appreciate high-profile examples of the correct or incorrect way to do this.

——— ADDITION TO QUESTION ———–

Here is an example of what I have done in the past to address this: http://photocontest.highpoint.edu/

I want to make sure there aren’t better ways to do this.

Answer 1

You are talking about graceful degradation: Designing and making the site to work with javascript, then making the site still work with javascript turned off. The easiest thing to do is include the html “noscript” tag somewhere near the top of your page that gives a message saying that the site REQUIRES javascript or things won’t work right. SO is a perfect example of this. Most of the buttons at the top of the screen run via javascript. Turn it off and you get a nice red banner and the drop down js effects are gone.

I prefer progressive enhancement development. Get the site working in it’s entirety without javascript / flash / css3 / whatever, THEN enhance it bit by bit (still include the noscript tag) to improve the user experience. This ensures you have a fully working, readable website regardless if you’re a disabled user with a screen reader or search engine, whilst providing a good user experience for users with newer browsers.

Bottom line: for any dynamically generated content (for example page elements generated via AJAX) there has to be a static page alternative where this content must be available via a standard link. If you are using javascript for tabbed content, then show all the content in a way that is consistent with the rest of the webpage.

An example is http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ Turn off javascript and you have a full page of written content, pictures, links etc. Turn on javascript and you get scrolling news stories, tabbed content, scrolling pictures and so on.

I’m going to be naughty and post links to wikipedia:

Progressive Enhancement

Graceful Degredation