Much of the Web relies on Javascript these days and thankfully most people have it on. If you’re creating a site for the general public, you still want to have a game-plan to deal with those surfing without it.

I looked at the top five travel booking sites, plus Yahoo! Travel, to see what they do. Booking travel is one activity I imagine is fairly consistent among all types of users. These six sites show a few different approaches to lack of Javascript.

The Security Gate Approach

Travelocity and Kayak both take a heavy-handed approach. They set up a security gate, where Javascript dogs sniff each incoming request. If Javascript is disabled, the guards kindly give you a customer alert.

Overall, I am against this option, but I can understand it. With only a small number of people without Javascript, it seems ridiculous to waste developer time being elegant. Toss up the security gate and be on your way.

While I never appreciate being told I have no choice, they provide clear instructions on fixing the problem. This is a simple solution without being too simplistic. Some sites that rely heavily on Javascript will probably need to use this method. A travel site probably isn’t that type of site.

The Deaf and Dumb Approach

The most common way to handle Javascript disabling is to ignore it. Any features on the site that use Javascript just won’t work. Depending on where the scripting is needed, you could be okay. Often it makes you look deaf to the user’s actions and dumb for not responding correctly.

Expedia, the largest travel booking site on the Internet, has a really big problem. When I click the ever-loving “Search for flights” button, nothing happens. My browser doesn’t move, because it isn’t doing anything.

The search button is activated by a function that can’t be called if Javascript is disabled.

Yahoo! Travel, which I expected to knock this out of the ballpark, gave the craziest error of all. No matter what dates I enter into the search, it tells me they are too far ahead–even when I use their dropdowns and keep the automatically-selected options of a date three weeks from now.

If you plan to rely heavily on Javascript, have a plan for dealing with the disablers. If you don’t, you could end up looking deaf and dumb.

The “It Just Works” Approach

Orbitz and CheapTickets just work. I typed in some airports and dates, clicked a button, and I saw itineraries with prices… just like I would expect from a travel site, regardless of Javascript.

Gerry McGovern with some great thoughts about simplicity on the Web:

We don’t pay for visiting a website with our money; we pay for it with our time. The longer we spend on a website the more we pay, so there is a strong motivation to spend as little time as possible.

A simple website charges you less time. A complex website charges you more time. Time is your most precious resource.

Sent to me by The Wheeze. Thanks to Beth Kanter for the photo.

The best presentation I saw at SXSW this year was by Peter Merholz. The title was “Stop Designing Products,” but the take-away was the experience is the product.

Merholz gave some examples of past technologies: cameras, automobiles. Early on, they are often tough to use. You had to develop your own film and be your own mechanic.

“Like a dog’s walking on his hind legs, it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” –Samuel Johnson

Then come features galore. Some of the fanciest VCRs still blink 12:00.

Merholz’s best example was George Eastman, who created the Kodak camera. No thick manual was required. “You press the button, we do the rest.”

Eastman understood the way people wanted to use their cameras. They didn’t want to know all the technology and they didn’t want to develop their pictures. They wanted it easy.

The money slides from the presentation were a set that show an abstracted version of your program. Data is at the core, with logic surrounding it, and the user interface on the outside. At least, that’s what we see. All the user sees is the UI. When done right, the rest is magic.

When designing, if you start with the data and move outwards, your program doesn’t understand the user. Instead, you have to start with the experience, because the experience is the product. Design from the outside in.

Merholz has slides available (38 MB PDF) of a longer version of this presentation.

Update: The audio from this SXSW talk is now available from their site.

Another update: Merholz’s talk is available as an article (with many of the same images from his talk).

Last update: The slides are now available in full presentation mode including audio.

Apparently twenty-somethings like to keep it simple, according to a recent survey of 100 “Generation Y trendsetters:”

Most of the companies cited by the respondents stress simplicity, says Brickley, who notes that many of their favorite companies, from giants such as Apple to smaller newcomers like Method, are known for keeping things as stripped-down and unadorned as possible – not just in terms of the product’s visual appearance but also in the way they organize their offerings.

Top five “trusted brands”
1. Apple
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Jet Blue
4. In-N-Out Burger
5. Ben & Jerry’s

See the top 15 and read the full article (via YPulse)

I happened upon interface design advice from a most unlikely source: Uber geek extraordinaire Eric Raymond. His take on interfaces is to apply the rule of least surprise.

“To design usable interfaces, it’s best when possible not to design an entire new interface model. Novelty is a barrier to entry; it puts a learning burden on the user, so minimize it. Instead, think carefully about the experience and knowledge of your user base. Try to find functional similarities between your program and programs they are likely to already know about. Then mimic the relevant parts of the existing interfaces.”

Obvious, maybe, but I love the way it’s phrased here. It’s general enough to be useful to anyone. Heck, it was written for Unix programmers, but I think anyone involved in the Web could get something from it.

For that matter, the whole thing looks pretty good. Jeff Veen lauds it as directly applicable to user experience, information architecture, and design. There’s even a Rule of Simplicity.

The whole thing is available online or in printed form. While you’re at it, check out Joel Spolsky’s excellent book with a similar angle: bringing usability to even the most technical things (and people).