Javascript Optional: Modern React Applications That Work Without JS

Have you ever tried browsing your favorite websites with JS disabled in your browser? It can feel like cutting a lifeline for the internet. Instead of welcoming user-friendly interfaces you’re faced with a blank wall that says “please enable JavaScript“ in the center of it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. 

In this talk, we’ll explore techniques for building modern web applications that can remain functional in a JS-free environment, and provide a full experience when JS is turned on.

This talk has been presented at React Summit US 2023, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

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FAQ

JavaScript optional applications refer to web applications that can function without the full use of JavaScript. They are designed to provide core functionalities even when JavaScript is disabled, using fallbacks and server-side capabilities to handle data fetching and mutations.

React server components and server actions allow data fetching and mutations to be handled on the server side, rather than relying on client-side JavaScript. This approach is crucial for enabling JavaScript-free experiences by reducing the dependency on JavaScript for interactive behaviors and data management.

JavaScript optional approaches can significantly improve application performance, especially in terms of the Time to Interactive (TTI) metric. By minimizing or eliminating the need for JavaScript, these approaches reduce delays caused by JavaScript parsing and execution, especially on slower networks or devices.

Techniques for building web applications without JavaScript include using HTML and CSS for basic functionality, server-side rendering, graceful degradation for complex features, and leveraging server actions for interactions that typically require JavaScript.

The interest in JavaScript optional applications is growing due to their benefits in performance, especially under conditions of slow internet or low-end devices. Additionally, these applications cater to users who disable JavaScript for privacy or security reasons, ensuring broader accessibility and usability.

Developers face challenges such as ensuring compatibility across different browsers and devices, providing equivalent functionality and user experience without JavaScript, and managing server-side complexities for data handling that JavaScript would typically perform.

Konstantin Lebedev
Konstantin Lebedev
28 min
13 Nov, 2023

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Video Summary and Transcription
In this Talk, the speaker discusses the concept of building JavaScript optional applications, focusing on the use of tools like React server components, Next.js, remix, React Router, Astro, SolidStarts, and Weld. They explore various aspects such as building eCommerce apps, pagination, adding items to cart without JavaScript, and implementing features like card previews using HTML and CSS. The speaker also highlights the trade-offs and considerations when disabling JavaScript, maintaining cart items, and combining old and new ways of building applications.

1. Building JavaScript Optional Apps

Short description:

In this talk, I will share my findings on building react applications that can work without JavaScript. While highly interactive applications heavily rely on JavaScript, there are many applications that use JavaScript for cosmetic purposes. Tools like React server components, Next.js, remix, React Router, Astro, SolidStarts, and Weld are addressing the challenge of JavaScript-free experiences. Although only a small percentage of users disable JavaScript, the impact on application performance, specifically time to interactive (TTI), is significant.

Great to see so many faces here. And I guess let's jump right in. So the idea for this talk comes from the project that we worked on, which was an experiment to get an answer to the following question. Can we build react applications that could also work without JavaScript? And for lack of a better name, I started calling such applications JavaScript optional. And today I'm going to share with you my findings.

But first, let's talk about web without JavaScript. Some of you may have tried doing this in a browser so you know what I'm about to show you. But for those of you who haven't, I can summarize the experience of browsing web without JavaScript in one slide. Basically, it looks like this. There is a small number of applications that retain some degree of functionality. But in most cases, you will get either an application skeleton that looks like it's loading but it never will, or a simple message asking you to turn the JavaScript back on. And that makes sense, right? Because we know that highly interactive applications come part and parcel with JavaScript. So, without JavaScript, they simply break.

But not all websites are created equal. And while we have a large number of websites that have JavaScript as an intrinsic part for providing their core features, there is an even larger number of applications that use JavaScript to enhance user experience, right? To show more user-friendly input fields, add some micro interactions, things like that. But essentially such JavaScript serves a cosmetic purpose. And so it shouldn't be difficult to imagine that such applications could still work even when JavaScript is off, at least in theory. In practice though, it almost never happens because building applications for JavaScript optional approach requires an intent. But the best we usually do is put a no-script tag with a message and call it a day.

Now, all of that might sound irrelevant but I began to notice that tools and frameworks that we're using are starting to address that. And not only talk about this problem, but also give us tools that facilitate the development of JavaScript optional apps. So starting with latest React and Next.js that uses it. They give us React server components and server actions which allow us to move data fetching and data mutation to the server. Now, this is very important because that ability will become key to unlocking JavaScript-free experiences. Then there is also remix and applications build on top of React Router that use latest data router. They have slightly different abstractions, right? They use loaders and actions but essentially they achieve the same goal, fetching and mutating data on a server. And then even if we look outside of React ecosystem, we'll discover tools like Astro, SolidStarts, Weld, maybe even more that begin to address this problem of JavaScript-free experiences in one way or another. So that brings a question, right? Why is everybody talking about this all of a sudden? And if we look at the statistics of users who actively disable JavaScript in their browser, we're going to discover that the number is rather small, right? It's about 0.2% of all web traffic. But what matters a lot more is how this JavaScript optional approach affects application performance and a metric called TTI in particular, right? TTI, or time to interactive in layman's terms is the amount of time it takes from seeing a button to being able to click on it, because, you know, in React it doesn't happen instantly. We first need to download, parse, and execute the JavaScript bundle.

2. Building JavaScript Optional eCommerce Apps

Short description:

If we build our applications to be usable even before any JavaScript is ready, we effectively reduce the delay to zero. Let's talk about building an eCommerce application using React server components and server actions.

And if we have a large JavaScript bundle and a slow network, then we have a problem, because this delay can extend into multiple seconds, and we see the users leave the website. But if we build our applications in a way that lets them be usable even before any JavaScript is ready, we effectively reduce this delay down to zero, which turns out to be very effective.

And there is a lot more to be said about the reasons for JavaScript optional approach, but in the interest of time, let's talk about a more interesting part and see how we can do it. So, to demonstrate that, we're going to build an eCommerce application. And for code samples, I'm going to use React server components and server actions. But it has to be said that all the techniques that I'm going to show you will work just as well with Remix, and in some cases, the solutions will be even simpler.

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