Safe level of website degradation

Hi,

Just a seemingly small question : is there an acceptable cut off point on
how far a website is degradable to?

As it stands, yet another site I'm working on degrades as far down as to
CSS support. If you don't have CSS, the site will still work, but looks
awful. The JS and Java bits degrade to their plain states.

Is there a "safe" level to assume the majority of browsers will be able to
cope with using their pre-installed values or even if they have been
played with?

TTFN

Paul

"Paul F. Johnson" <paulf.johnson@ukonline.co.uk> wrote in message
newsan.2003.06.23.23.11.13.612276@ukonline.co.uk ...
> Hi,
>
> Just a seemingly small question : is there an acceptable cut off point on
> how far a website is degradable to?
>
> As it stands, yet another site I'm working on degrades as far down as to
> CSS support. If you don't have CSS, the site will still work, but looks
> awful. The JS and Java bits degrade to their plain states.
>
> Is there a "safe" level to assume the majority of browsers will be able to
> cope with using their pre-installed values or even if they have been
> played with?

Download a copy of Lynx (text only browser).

It gives you an idea of what a blind person will hear and what a search
engine spider will see.

Cheers
Richard.

"Paul F. Johnson" <paulf.johnson@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:

>As it stands, yet another site I'm working on degrades as far down as to
>CSS support. If you don't have CSS, the site will still work, but looks
>awful.

Define "awful", a site sans CSS should look very clear,
information/content only.

Presentation is by definition 100% optional, if the content isn't 100%
clear without it then you have used CSS inappropriately (hard to do), or
more likely your markup is incorrect.


Headless

"Paul F. Johnson" <paulf.johnson@ukonline.co.uk> wrote in message
newsan.2003.06.23.23.11.13.612276@ukonline.co.uk ...

> Is there a "safe" level to assume the majority of browsers will be able to
> cope with using their pre-installed values or even if they have been
> played with?

One really good place to visit is this site http://www.csszengarden.com/

When you remove all CSS/images etc... it becomes just plain text as in a
document. It doesnt look like it was before but it isnt excatly awful, just
plain. I reckon this is what all sites should be able to degrade to, like a
text document but thats just me.

Andy