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A site is built mostly in PHP and JS (link here: http://thebambergergroup.com/) Certain pages won't load or will work awfully when JS is blocked. Two questions:

  1. Should a site be programmed so that it can function well even when resources are blocked? Or is this too small of an issue to worry about? Example: users in the office where office computers auto block loading of JS etc.

  2. What resources are most commonly blocked that could effect website performance and usability?

Many thanks!

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  • If something is "too small of an issue" is very subjective. If you wonder about how many users this might affect, stats would be needed, but gaining valid stats about non-JS users is difficult, as it depends on site topic / audience, country, etc., and users might start blocking only after you introduce certain scripts, users might only block certain scripts (allowing the statistics, but disallowing some other), and you might have already lost users because of your use of scripts, etc.
    – unor
    Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 23:53
  • Thanks @unor . I guess I was also curious - aside from JS - are there any other common scripts, languages, resources or anything of the like that office type environments intentionally block that could affect website usability?
    – Dan Bamberger
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 18:39

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I believe a suitable message can be:

Javascript is turned OFF in your browser. For the optimal site experience, we highly recommend you switch Javascript ON. Know more here: Turn On Javascript for Chrome.

This helps in the following manner:

  1. It suggests the user that the website highly depends on Javascript. If it's turned off, the user will know why the website might not behave optimally.
  2. It recommends the user to switch on Javascript. Now, a non-technical person might not know what Javascript is. Hence, the link is provided to resolve the same.

Also, regarding the resources, it's best to program a website to never depend on any resources, but we all know that isn't possible. Instead, what one can aim for is smooth functioning even if a few functions might not be available. It shouldn't be that the entire website is crippled due to a single function that might require JS.

For example, let's say you're using JS to get the user's geolocation to provide him discounts at Barbershops nearby. However, JS is turned off. Now, you could simply display the message above and have him go through the steps or you could have the user select his location manually.

A simple conditional statement could do the job if the user can do a task manually that JS is blocked for.

It is much better to have a manual way to get the information of the user which can be provided by the user themselves instead of just blatantly showing that JS is disabled. The user does not want to run into technical problems, but will be open to entering the location in a search bar for the above example.

For other cases where JS is required, the message above should suffice.

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    Thanks. I guess I was also curious - aside from JS - are there any other common scripts, languages, resources or anything of the like that office type environments intentionally block that could affect website usability?
    – Dan Bamberger
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 18:39
  • A lot of people have Adblock installed. If one of the service you use or anything on your web page that's blacklisted on Adblock could cause playback issues. But, this is only true for the blacklisted websites, so you need not be worried.
    – Swapnil Borkar
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 18:42
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It's Depend.

let's say if you can handle a simple styling or toggling with CSS, then don't use JS instead. simple css will do the job.

But in case you having complicated web app:

Almost all modern web apps are heavily depend on front-end technologies which designed by AngularJS, BackboneJS and etc. it's almost impossible you give a good experience while JS is not enable. Showing a message as fallback is reasonble solutions as Swapnil pointed out too.

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