How to Stop Internet Explorer From Reading My Custom Css Routine

CSS is what gives every website its design. Websites sure aren't very fun and friendly without it! I've read about somebody going a week without JavaScript and how the feel resulted in websites that were faster, though sure aspects of them would not function as expected.

But CSS. Turning off CSS while browsing the web wouldn't exactly brand the spider web far less usable… right? Or, like JavaScript, would some features not work as expected? Out of marvel, I decided to give it a whirl and rip the CSS flesh off the HTML skeleton while browsing a few sites.

Why, you lot might enquire? Are there any non-masochistic reasons for turning off CSS? Heydon Pickering once tweeted that disabling CSS is a good manner to check some accessibility standards:

  1. Common elements like headings, lists, and course controls are semantic and still look skillful.
  2. A visual hierarchy is nonetheless established with default styles.
  3. The content can withal be read in a logical guild.
  4. Images all the same exist every bit <img> tags rather than getting lost as CSS backgrounds.

A WebAIM survey from 2018 reported that 12.v% of users who rely on whatsoever sort of assisted technology browse the web with custom stylesheets, which tin include doing away with every CSS declaration across a site. And, if we're talking about deadening internet connections, ditching CSS could be one mode to consume content faster. In that location'due south also the hazard that CSS is disabled for reasons exterior our immediate control, similar when a server has hiccups of fails to load assets.

As an experiment, I used five websites and a web app without CSS, and this mail will cover my experiences. Information technology wound up being a rather eye-opening adventure for me personally, merely has also informed me professionally as a programmer in ways I hope you lot'll run across likewise.

Simply first, here's how to disable CSS

You're admittedly welcome to live vicariously through me in the form of this post. But for those of yous who are feeling up to the task and desire to feel a style-less spider web, here's how to disable CSS in various browsers:

  • Chrome: There's actually no setting in Chrome to disable CSS, so we have to resort to an extension, like disable-HTML.
  • Firefox: View > Folio Style > No Mode
  • Safari: Safari > Preferences... > Show Develop menu in bill of fare bar. And so get to the Develop dropdown and select the "Disable Styles" option.
  • Opera: Like Chrome, we need an extension, and Web Programmer fits the bill.
  • Net Explorer 11: View > Manner > No way

I couldn't discover a documented way to disable CSS in Edge, but we can remove CSS from it and any other browser programmatically via the CSS Object Model API in the DevTools panel:

          var d = certificate;  for (var south in S = d.styleSheets)     S[south].disabled = true;  for (var i in I = d.querySelectorAll("[style]"))     I[i].style = "";        

The get-go loop disables all external and internal styles (in <link> and <style>), and the second eliminates any inline styles. The caveat here, however, is that elements tin even so dynamically be given new inline styles. To instantly erase them, the best workaround is calculation a timer. Something similar this:

          (f = part(){     // Remove CSS     ...      setTimeout(f, 20); })();        

Alternatively, there are text-only browsers — such as the ancient Lynx — but wait to exist living without video, images (including SVGs), and JavaScript.

Through the style-less looking glass…

For each site I surfed without CSS — Amazon, DuckDuckGo, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Wikipedia and dissimilarity checker called Hex Naw — I'll share my commencement impressions and put some suggestions out in that location that might assist with the feel.

Become ready, because things might get a chip… bloodcurdling. 😱


Website 1: Amazon.com
The Amazon.com homepage with and without CSS
The Amazon.com homepage with CSS (left) and without CSS (right).

There'south no real need for an introduction here. Non only is Amazon a household staple for and so many of us, it also powers a huge clamper of the web, thank you to their ubiquitous Amazon Web Services platform.

There's a vast number of things going on here, so I'll explore the manner-less stuff that gets in my path while finding a product and pretending to purchase it.

The Amazon.com results for a
The Amazon.com results for a "mac mini" search query.

On the homepage, I immediately see a sprite canvass used by the site. It's really in place of where the logo could be, thus making it tough to know whether or not those images are intended to be there. Each sprite contains multiple versions of the logo, and fifty-fifty if I could encounter the "Amazon" word mark in information technology, it's surprisingly that it's non the global habitation link. If you're curious where the dwelling house link really is, it'due south this construction of spans where the logo is served up every bit groundwork image… in CSS:

            <a href="/ref=nav_logo" course="nav-logo-link" aria-characterization="Amazon" tabindex="6">   <span grade="nav-sprite nav-logo-base"></span>   <span class="nav-sprite nav-logo-ext"></span>   <span class="nav-sprite nav-logo-locale"></span> </a>          

The next problem that arises is that the "Skip to main content" link doesn't await like a typical skip link, withal it works similar ane. Information technology turns out to be an <a> element without an href, and JavaScript (yep, I did leave that enabled) is used to mimic anchor functionality.

When I showtime a search, I take to look further below the "Go started" link to see the suggestions. Under the "Your Lists" and "Your Account" items, information technology becomes difficult to tell the links apart. They announced all strung together as if they were one super long mega link. I believe information technology would have been more effective to apply a semantic unordered listing in this scenario to maintain a sense of bureaucracy.

Under all those search suggestions, however, the account and navigation links are easier to read since they're separated by some space.

Interestingly, the carousel lower downwards the page is even so somewhat functional. If I click the "Previous page" or "Next page" options, the gild of the images is changed. However, hopping between those options required me to roll.

A split view of the carousel on the amazon.com homepage. First is initial state, second shows previous page on top, and third shows next page on top.
The carousel appears with its pages stack on top of another. The previous or next page shows up on top.

Skipping down a bit further, in that location's an advertisement element. It contains an "Advertizing feedback" string that looks static but like what nosotros saw with the "Skip to main content" link earlier. Well, I clicked it anyway and information technology revealed a course for sharing feedback on the advertisement relevance.

Blue curvy arrow showing destination to ad feedback form when clicking Ad Feedback text under ad
To make the call to action clearer, "Advert feedback" should be a link or button.

You lot may have missed it, but in that location'due south a bare button to a higher place the two groups of form labels and the radios buttons are out of place. The structure is disruptive because I don't know which labels belong to which radio buttons. I hateful, I gauge I could assume that the first label goes with the showtime radio input, but that's exactly what it is: a judge.

What'due south too confusing is that there are Submit buttons betwixt the "Close Window," "Abolish," and "Ship Feedback" options at the bottom of the class. If I press any of these, I'm taken dorsum to the advertisement. Now, suppose I were blind and using a screen reader to navigate this aforementioned function, even with the presence of CSS. I would be told "Submit, button" for two of the buttons and would therefore have null clue what to do without guessing. Information technology'due south some other good reminder about the importance of semantics when handling markup (push button labels in this case) and being mindful of how much reliance is placed on JavaScript to override web defaults.

Doing a search — let'due south say for "Mac Minis" — I can still access and understand the product ratings since they are displayed as text (instead of the tooltips they are otherwise) in place of stars. This is a good case of using a solid textual fallback when an image is used as visual content, but is served as a background paradigm in CSS.

Messy results page displaying sponsored products on top of normal products
The page required me to coil a while to get to the actual search results. Notice that ginormous overlay of a sponsored product.

Having called the Mac Mini with Intel Cadre i3, I'1000 greeted by other Mac products to a higher place the product I've selected and take to navigate beyond them to select the quantity I want to buy.

Part of product page showing Amazon Prime membership info
The product folio displays Amazon Prime membership info slapped between the quantity selection and purchase buttons.

Whorl downwardly, and an "Add to Cart" push is displayed adjacent to a label bearing the same content. That'southward redundant and probably unnecessary since a <button> element is capable of property its own label:

            <push button>Add to Cart</push button>          

Next up, we accept an offer for an Amazon Prime number membership. That's all fine and bully, just notice that it's inserted betwixt the product I'g purchasing and the "Purchase Now" button. I take a really difficult time knowing whether clicking "Purchase Now" is going to add the Mac Mini to checkout, or whether I'yard purchasing Amazon Prime number instead.

I likewise wanted to play around a bit, so I tried removing the Mac Mini from my cart one time I figured out how to add it. It took me similar 10 seconds to locate the cart so I could edit it. Turns out information technology was directly next to "Go on to checkout (1 item)" link simply rams correct upwardly alongside it so it all looks like a single link.

Part of shopping cart page showing a Mac Mini added, Cart and Proceed to Checkout links together, and gift card offer with cost after deduction

Overall, it wasn't difficult to discover a product. On the other hand, the path to checkout became more of a headache as I proceeded. At that place was some poor semantic- and accessibility-related practices that caused confusion, and of import buttons and links became more difficult to find.

👍 What the Site Does Well 💡 What the Site Can Improve
Carousels are functional fifty-fifty without styling. The logo relies on a groundwork prototype, obscuring the path dorsum abode.
The content hierarchy is still generally helpful for knowing where we are on a page. Many links and anchors rely on JavaScript and do not appear to be interactive.
The guild of elements remains roughly in tact. Links frequently crash-land up against each other or are placed outside where they would be relevant.
Great use of fallbacks for product rating that rely on background images. Push button labels are either misleading or repetitive.
Form elements fail to marshal themselves properly.
At that place's a rough journeying to check out.
Website two: DuckDuckGo
The DuckDuckGo homepage with and without CSS
The DuckDuckGo homepage with CSS (left) and without CSS (right).

Take you used DuckDuckGo before? I presume many folks reading CSS-Tricks have, but for those who may exist hearing of it for the first fourth dimension, it's an alternative to Google search with an accent on user privacy.

Then, getting started with this is a little misleading because the DuckDuckGo homepage is super unproblematic. Non much tin can become wrong at that place, correct? Well, it's a little more involved than that since we're dealing with search results, content bureaucracy and relevance once we become into making search queries.

Top of DuckDuckGo homepage

Right off the bat, what I'k greeted with is a lot more content than I would have expected for such a simple lander. At it'due south not totally clear what website this is by scanning the website. The kickoff mention of the product name is the fourth item in the first unordered list and information technology's a call to action to "Spread DuckDuckGo." The logo is totally missing, which apparently means information technology's used equally a background… in CSS.

Speaking of that unordered list, I presume what I'm seeing belongs in the header, and at that place'due south no skip navigation. Nosotros have a triple arrow icon (is that a mobile menu or a card to hide the least of import items, or something else?), followed by privacy-related content, social media links, something that looks like 1 link but is actually two links for "Well-nigh DuckDuckGo" and "Learn More than."

Finally, toward the very bottom is where the chief apply case for the site actually comes upward: the search bar. I assume the "S" characterization means "Search" and the "X" label is shorthand to clear the search field.

Alright, onto performing a search. It's super absurd that I can still encounter automobile-suggestions and utilize the up and downwardly arrow keys to highlight each one. Clearing the field though, the suggestions don't disappear until after I refresh the page.

Performing a search and checking out the auto-suggestions
Performing a search and checking out the machine-suggestions.

Everything in the Settings menu are items in a list including what should be headings — "Settings," "Privacy Essentials," "Why Privacy," "Who We Are," and "Go along in Touch." These are very likely office of a mobile men if CSS was enabled, maybe triggered past that triple pointer link matter at the height. In that card, I see 4 blank bullet points between "Settings" and "More Themes."

Orange arrows pointing to run-on links, unclear button labels, and empty list items
The DuckDuckGo homepage exposed a few glaring usability issues correct off the bat.

Coming here as a new user, I have no idea what those empty list items are, simply the bullets I highlighted in the screenshot to a higher place are actually the theme buttons. To clarify the intent, some fallback text would exist helpful, and these should be radio or normal buttons instead of listing items (considering their functionality).

Every block of content with an "X" — including the "Settings" — cannot exist dismissed; withal, clicking the "X" above an image of a hiker image does crusade a clamper of content to clear off the screen — thanks to JavaScript still being enabled. What I actually find awkward is the redundant numeration in the ordered list nether "Switch to DuckDuckGo…" We see this:

            1. 1We don't store your personal info 2. 2We don't follow you around with ads 3. 3We don't rails you. Always.          

Looks similar some mixed use case of semantic markup with some other way to display list particular numbers.

Clicking each X to find that only the third has functionality
The third "X" down has functionality.

There's a colossal amount of white space nether the hiker paradigm until the commencement <h1> element. Assuming they're either links or buttons, clicking every instance of "Add DuckDuckGo to [browser]" does zilch. Each department'southward illustration causes some unnecessary horizontal scrolling, which is a common upshot nosotros'll meet in the other sites we look at.

Scrolling through white space between hiker image and first-level heading
Scrolling through white space between hiker prototype and starting time-level heading. Wheee!

Later those sections, there's a blank box and I accept no thought what it is.

A blank box at the bottom of the page
A blank box that appears to accept no purpose.

I croaky open DevTools and it turns out to be a <body> element in an <iframe> that holds only JavaScript for something related to Mail service requests. It might as well be one of those elements we should leave lonely.

Following that, I meet two repeated instances of "Fix as Default Search Engine" wrapped around a "Gear up equally Homepage" department.

Instructions in Safari to set the search engine as your default or your homepage
The instructions in Safari to set the search engine as your default or your homepage. Instructions may differ from one browser to some other.

These must have been the instructions that popped up when I clicked the "Add together DuckDuckGo…" deportment, but it shows the touch hiding and showing content tin can have when we're dealing with direct markup. Instead of repeating content, the respective links or buttons should point to i instance. That would cut the redundancy hither.

OK, time to finally get into search. The first thing I encounter in the search results is an empty box with an instruction to ignore the box. Okey-dokey then.

Orange arrow pointing at a tiny box on the search results page saying
DuckDuckGo wants me to ignore a box.

Moving on, did you see that DuckDuckGo link? That must be the logo, and I wonder why this was non on the homepage. Seems similar depression-hanging fruit for comeback.

The search bar nonetheless functions unremarkably with the exception of the "S" and "X" buttons that take swapped places from where they were on the homepage.

Onto the search results. I could easily distinguish one result from another. What I constitute quite unnecessary, yet funny, is that the "Your browser indicates if yous've visited this link" messaging that's located at the end of each page title. That would exist super annoying from a screen reading perspective. Imagine hearing that repeated at the end of every page title. That messaging is there to be displayed alongside checkmarks that contain tooltips that concur that messaging. But, with CSS disabled, well, no checkmarks and no tooltips. Equally a event, all I become is an extra long heading.

Comparison of search results page with and without CSS. Extra text appears next to titles in the non-CSS version.
Search results on DuckDuckGo are still well structured with CSS disabled, but find the messaging that is appended to each upshot title.

The navigation bar that is unremarkably displayed as tabs to filter past different types of results (east.k. Images) seems to do nil at this point because it's hard to tell that they are filters without styling. Only if I click on the Images filter, the paradigm results are actually loaded lower down onto the folio, piled right on peak of the Web results, and the folio becomes mega long as a effect. Oh, and you might think that scrolling all the way dorsum upwardly (and it'south a long mode upward) then clicking another filter, say Videos, would replace the images, but that simply inserts video thumbnail images below the images making an already mega long page a super mega long page. Imagine the page weight of all those assets!

Well, yous don't have to. According to DevTools, images alone account for 831 requests and a total weight of 23.7 MB. Hefty!

Orange outline box encircling feedback on requests and total image weight in DevTools
The existent kicker is that it'due south not immediately clear that all those images accept loaded visually.

The terminal couple of items are worth noting. Clicking the "Send feedback" link apparently does nothing. Mayhap that triggered a modal with CSS? And, although the "All Regions" link does non resemble a link and I could've easily ignored it, I was curious enough to click it and was taken to an anchor betoken of a listing of countries. The last 2 links just fabricated their corresponding contents announced under the list country options.

Blue arrow showing destination to list of regions after clicking All Regions
The "All Regions" option is secretly interim as an anchor.

There's a lot going on hither and there are conspicuously opportunities for comeback. For example, there are calls to action that display every bit normal text that should be either be links or buttons instead. Also, we'd think the functioning of a site would get ameliorate with CSS disabled, only all those loaded assets in the search results are prohibitive. That said, the search experience isn't painful at all… that is, unless you lot're digging into images or videos while doing it.

👍 What the Site Does Well 💡 What the Site Tin Ameliorate
Search is consistent and works with or without CSS. A "skip" link for would help with keyboard browsing.
The content bureaucracy makes content easy to read and search results a make clean feel. Non-link items in the "Settings" menu should exist headings for dissever unordered lists and then there is a articulate hierarchy for how the options are grouped.
Good utilise of a homepage link at the top of the search results folio. Some content is either duplicated or repeated because the site relies on conditionally showing and hiding content.
Make sure that all calls to action render as links instead of patently text.
Use a fallback solution to filter the types of search results to prevent items stacking and help control hefty page weight.
Website three: GitHub
The GitHub homepage with and without CSS
The GitHub homepage with CSS (left) and without CSS (right).

Hey, hither's a site many of us are well familiar with! Well, many of us are used to existence logged into information technology all the time, merely I'chiliad going to surf it while logged out.

Already, there'due south a skip link (yay). In that location's also a mobile navigation icon that I look will do nothing, and am proven correct when I try.

Wide gap after Why GitHub? dropdown
That big gap of white? It's an SVG icon with a white make full, according to DevTools.

Between some of the navigation items, there are unnecessarily giant gaps. If you click on these, they withal function as dropdown menus. They are <details> and <summary> elements… but something feels semantically incorrect. It is nice that the menu items are actually unordered list items and that native browser functionality can nonetheless take place past using a semantic way to aggrandize content. But that SVG icon messes with me.

Before typing annihilation into the field, I see three instances of "Search All GitHub" and "Spring to" links. I have no idea which to click, but if I do a search, the keyword shows up in the tertiary group.

Orange outline boxes around groups of search links
There is no clear connexion between the search input and the 3 groups of links.

Everything else on the homepage seems fine except for a number of overly large images horizontally overflowing the window.

Scrolling down to see large images overflowing the browser window
Scrolling downwards to encounter large images overflowing the browser window.

Allow's go back to the search bar and navigate to whatsoever repo we can detect. Right under the Search push, we have 2 nearly identical secondary navigation bars that return the repository counts, lawmaking, commits, and other meta. Without looking at the source, I have no inkling what the purpose is for having two of these.

Search results for a
Search results for a "javascript tips" query.

Repository pages still have an easy-to-follow structure and a logical hierarchy for the most office. While logged out and having my enshroud cleared before coming, the "Dismiss" button for the "Join GitHub today" block notwithstanding performs as I'd expect. Like nosotros saw before on Amazon, the tag links are difficult to tell apart because they run together every bit a single line.

A repository page in a logged out state.

The next two buttons — "JavaScript" and "New Pull Asking" — don't seem to practice anything when I click them. I'd imagine the pull request push button should be disabled while viewing as a guest since, unless it's intended to take a user to a log in screen first… but fifty-fifty that doesn't experience right. Turns out that the push button is indeed disabled when CSS is active, though. Then the rest of the page is adequately easy to sympathize.

If you're here mainly for managing, contributing to, or checking out repositories, you won't face a whole lot of friction since the bureaucracy plays out well. You'll experience pretty much the same elsewhere, whether you're looking at pull requests, issues, or individual files. Nigh of the hurdles live in less prominent pages on the site.

👍 What the Site Does Well 💡 What the Site Can Meliorate
The bureaucracy and structure of many pages are actually like shooting fish in a barrel to follow and make logical sense. Employ the pinnacle and width attributes on <img> elements and SVGs to prevent them from blowing upward.
Most of the SVG icons embedded on the page are appropriately sized. Watch for empty list items.
Nice use of a skip link in the header. Ensure that push labels use full words.
Make sure links have whitespace or line breaks between them to forbid run-ons.
Website 4: Hex Naw
The Hex Naw tool with and without CSS
The Hex Naw homepage with CSS (left) and without CSS (right).

This next site is an online tool I utilize oft to check color contrasts for accessibility. And for a site that is then big on color, there' s probably a lot happening here with CSS, so it should get interesting.

In that location'southward immediately a large amount of infinite above the navigation and no skip links. The hamburger and close buttons for the mobile layout and "X" buttons side by side to each color to test are oversized.

Scrolling to find missing skip links and excessive space above the navigtion
We're missing skip links and there is excessive space above the navigation.

Oh, and check out this giant gap between the "Test Colors" button and the adjacent section of content.

Scrolling to show large gap between Test Colors button and
It would be nice to shut this gap and so the "aye" and "naw" counters are visible in the examination.

Ane of the many nice features of this site is a checkbox that allows y'all to see just the colors that passed the test, rather than viewing all of the tested colors. Unfortunately, that push does zip with CSS disabled. However, I can nevertheless run into which colors work and become the definitions for contrast ratio, large text, and minor text directly in the event table.

Test result section showing

Hiding and showing the terms is probably what the button does with CSS. The bummer is that I won't know the purpose of those single letters (e.1000. South and R) subsequently the table headers. It'due south also both ironic and disruptive to meet that message for all declining colors after the table because, well, there are passing colors in this list. What could be washed is have hide it by default but conditionally inject information technology later if all the colors in a single test fail.

Pulling out DevTools, it turns out some of the white space at the pinnacle is the Hex Naw logo every bit a SVG file. The space above that is associated with other SVG symbols used for the page. By using a default colour of black for the logo, this would assistance reduce some of the space. I fabricated that quick modify in DevTools and information technology makes a noticeable divergence.

Hex Naw logo colored black and highlighted in DevTools
The size of the mobile carte and "X" icons can easily be reduced and exist proportional to their viewBox attributes.
The menu and X icons given a width and height of 44 pixels using the attributes
Here's one way to reduce the size of the mobile bill of fare and "Ten" icons.

The second gap of space is caused by an SVG loader that appears while calculating color contrasts. This could be helped by specifying a much smaller, nonetheless proportional, width and acme exactly similar the mobile carte du jour and "Ten" icons.

SVG loader icon resized to 25px by 25px
I was able to reveal and resize the SVG loader icon in DevTools.

Adding an initial width and tiptop to each SVG would definitely reduce the need to whorl. This is also what we can practice to ready the gaps we saw in GitHub'due south navigation as well.

Ultimately, Hex Naw remains pretty useful without CSS. I can still examination colors, go passing and declining color results, and navigate around the page. It'south just besides bad I wasn't able to work with actual colors and had to work around those extra large SVG icons.

👍 What the Site Does Well 💡 What the Site Can Ameliorate
The site maintains good content hierarchy throughout the site. SVGs should exist utilize a fallback make full colour and employ the height and width attributes.
All of the elements are written semantically. Feedback for all failing colors could be dynamically added and removed to preclude awkward messaging.
The tests themselves function properly with the exception of existence able to testify or hide information. Consider an culling style to display color for the values being tested, like table cells with the groundwork color attribute.
Website 5: Stack Overflow
The Stack Overflow homepage with and without CSS
The Stack Overflow homepage with CSS (left) and without CSS (right).

Similar GitHub, Stack Overflow is one of those resource that many (if not most) of us go on in our dorsum pocket considering information technology helps find whether someone has already asked a development question and the answers to them.

On the folio to inquire a question, I see a bunch of blank bullet points above the main <textarea> element. I take no thought why those empty list items are there. I don't see any of the formatting buttons either, but after messing around a bit, I establish that they happen to be nothing more than blank list items. Perhaps fallback text or an SVG icon for each item would help identify what these are and do. They should be turned into real buttons every bit well.

It's likewise notwithstanding possible to get a list of similar questions while entering text into the title field. Every works here as expected, which is dainty. Although, it is strange that the vote counts for each suggested question appears twice, one time to a higher place the title every bit a link and again next to the title without existence linked.

The
The "Ask a Question" page has a little awkward formatting, but the overall functionality is in tact and the page is relatively easy to navigate.

One of the key elements we all await for when landing on a Stack Overflow question page is that big green checkmark that indicates the correct answer out of all the submitted answers. But with CSS turned off, it's difficult to tell which answer was accepted because each answer in the list has a black checkmark. Fifty-fifty if the accustomed answer is always at the top, there'south still no alternative or fallback indication without having to collaborate with the page. Additionally, in that location's no indication if you lot have already up voted or downwards voted the question or whatsoever of the answers.

Answered question with black checkmarks next to an accepted answer and other answers
The question (left) next to the list of provided answers (right). We lose a lot of hierarchy when styles are taken abroad.

To sum up my experience on Stack Overflow, I was able to accomplish what I commonly come to the site for: finding answers to a programming problem. That said, at that place were indeed a few opportunities for improvement and this site is a prime case of how blueprint often relies on color to indicate bureaucracy or value on a folio, which was sorely missing from the question pages in this experiment.

👍 What the Site Does Well 💡 What the Site Can Better
Nigh every element is written semantically. Apply clear controls to place editing tools while request or answering questions.
SVG icons use the width and superlative attributes. Consider a visual icon to distinguish the accepted reply from any other answers to a question.
Lists of answers are clear and easy to scan. Consider a dissimilar method to indicate an up vote or a down vote besides color lone.
Website half dozen: Wikipedia
The Wikipedia homepage with and without CSS
The Wikipedia homepage with CSS (left) and without CSS (right).

Wikipedia, the spider web'southward master betoken of reference! It's an online staple and ane of its appealing qualities is a sort of lack of design. This should make for an interesting test.

A few links downwardly, we have a skip navigation option for the real navigation and search. The homepage header containing the earth image maintains its 2 column layout, and you may accept guessed why: this is a table layout. While it may not exist a usability issue, we know it isn't semantic to rely on tables to create a layout. That was a relic of the way past when nosotros didn't have floats, flexbox, grid or whatever other style to handle content placement. That said, there are no noticeable usability issues or confusing elements on the page.

Permit's move on to what many of the states spend the most time on in Wikipedia: an article entry. This is often the entry indicate to Wikipedia, especially for those of us that commencement by typing something into a search engine, so click on the Wikipedia search result.

Top of Wikipedia article
Discover how similar the style-less page is to the styled folio, even though it becomes a single cavalcade.

The bottom line is that this page is even so extremely usable and hierarchical with CSS disabled. The layout goes down to a single cavalcade, merely the content still flows in a logical social club and even maintains $.25 of styling, thank you once again to a reliance on tables and inline table properties.

One event I bumped upward against is the navigation. In that location is a "Leap to navigation" link in the header which indeed drops me downwards to the navigation when I click it. In instance you're wondering, the navigation is contained in the footer, which is the reason for needing to jump to it.

Navigation menu with stranded checkboxes above
Navigation menu with stranded checkboxes above "Variants" and "More."

There are seemingly random checkboxes above a couple of the navigation headings (specifically for "Variants" and "More than") and they appear to serve no purpose, although the checkbox in a higher place "More than" becomes displays at a certain viewport width when CSS is enabled.

There really is one odd thing in the navigation, and information technology's a characterization-less button between the "In other projects" and "Languages" headings.

Part of navigation showing blank button with
Hovering over the push button provides a hint that it's for language settings, but the button should at least have a title to brand that clear up forepart.

Clicking that button, I'thousand still able to access the language settings, and it by and large works as expected. For instance, the layout maintains a tabbed layout which is super functional.

The CSS-less possibility of switching back and forth between Display and Input tabs

In the Display tab, however, the "Language" and "Fonts" buttons do nothing. They probably are tabs as well, but at least I tin can see what they offer. Abreast those buttons are two empty select menus that do absolutely nothing (the outset one does become populated with ComicNeue, OpenDyslexic, and System font options when you check the checkbox). Looking at the "Input" tab, the writing language buttons still happen to function as tabs. I'm all the same able to select options other than English language, Spanish, and Chinese.

Blue arrow pointing out the jump to a list of languages at the top of the page when pressing the [...] button
Pressing the […] push button takes me to a listing of languages at the top of the page.

The articles aren't difficult to read at all without CSS and that's considering nearly every element is semantically right and follows a consistent document hierarchy. One thing I did wonder was where the "Testify/Hibernate" button that's usually in the tabular array of contents went. It turns out to be a lone checkbox, and the characterization is fake — it uses the content property on a pseudo-chemical element in CSS to display the label.

Another event in articles is that you have to spend time hunting images down when previewing them. Unremarkably, clicking an image in the article sidebar will trigger a full-screen modal that contains a carousel of images. Without CSS, that carousel is gone and, in its place, is the image with a row of unlabeled buttons higher up it. That'south a bummer, but would be perfectly OK if the carousel wasn't all the way down the folio, reverse of where the clicked epitome is at the peak of the page without an power to spring down to information technology.

Orange arrow pointing to blank buttons above carousel, which are the controls
The image carousel is no longer contained in a modal, only at the end of the page.

I'd be devil-may-care if I didn't mention that the Wikipedia logo was nowhere to be establish on the commodity! Information technology'due south not fifty-fifty a white SVG on white. The link contains actually zero:

            <a grade="mw-wiki-logo" href="/wiki/Main_Page" title="Visit the main page"></a>          

Thankfully, the "Main page" link under "Navigation" is the another way back home without pressing the browser Back button. But, still feels odd to have no branding on the folio when it does such a great job of it on the homepage.

Wikipedia's HTML issues be mostly in features I await to be less often used rather than articles. They never hampered my reading experience in the long run.

👍 What the Site Does Well 💡 What the Site Can Improve
The site maintains a clean structure and hierarchy. The logo placement could be moved (or added, in some cases) to the height of the page without a CSS background image.
Skip links are used effectively for search and navigation. Buttons should include labels.
The commodity content is semantic and easy to read. The image carousel on pages could load where the trigger occurs and use proper button labels for the controls.

Means to make CSS-less a ameliorate experience

CSS is a cardinal component to the mod web. As we've seen up to this point, there are a number of sites that become adjacent to un-unusable without it — and nosotros're counting some of the most recognizable and used sites in that mix. What we've seen is that, at best, the main purpose for a site tin still exist achieved, just there are hurdles along the way. Things similar:

  • missing or semantically wrong skip links
  • links that run together
  • oversized images that require additional scrolling
  • empty elements, similar list items and push button labels

Let'southward run into if we can compile these into a sort of list of all-time practices to consider for situations where CSS might exist disabled or fifty-fifty unavailable.

Include a skip navigation link at the height of the document

Having a hidden link to skip the navigation is a must. Notice how most of the sites we looked at independent navigation links directly in the header. With CSS turned off, those navigations became long lists of links that would exist so hard to tab or scroll through for any user. Having a link to skip that would make that experience much better.

The most basic HTML example I've seen is an anchor link that targets an ID where the main content begins.

            <a href="#principal">Skip to chief content</a> <!-- etc. --> <main id="main"></main>          

And, of course, we can throw a class proper name on that link to hide it visually so it is not displayed in the UI but withal available for both keyboard users and when CSS happens to exist off.

            .skip-navigation {   border: 0;   clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);   overflow: subconscious;   padding: 0;   position: accented;   height: 1px;   width: 1px; }  /* Bonus points for calculation :focus styles */          
Go out whitespaces where they make sense

Another hurting point we saw in a few cases were text links running together. Whether it was in the navigation, tags, or other linked up meta, we often saw links that were "glued together" in such a way that several individual links appeared to exist one behemothic link. That's either the upshot of paw-coding the links like that or an automatic build task that compresses HTML and removes whitespaces in the process. Either mode, the HTML winds up like this:

            <a href="#">CSS</a><a href="#">JavaScript</a><a href="#">Python</a><a href="#">Swift</a>          

We can keep the freedom to utilise spaces or line breaks though, even with CSS disabled. One idea is to lean on flexbox for positioning listing elements when CSS is enabled. When CSS is disabled, the list items should stack vertically and brandish as list items by default.

If the items are tags and should yet be separated, then traditional spacing methods like margins and padding are still great and we can rely on natural line breaks in the HTML to assistance with the style-less formatting. For case, hither are line breaks in the HTML used to separate items, flexbox to remove spaces, and then styled up in CSS to re-separated the items:

Meet the Pen
Handling Links in HTML Separated by Spaces or Line Breaks by Jon Kantner (@jkantner)
on CodePen.

Use width and meridian attributes liberally

The biggest nuisance in this experiment may have been images exploding on the screen to the signal that they boss the content, take upward an inordinate amount of space, and result in a hefty amount of scrolling for all users.

The fix hither is rather straightforward because we accept HTML attributes waiting for us to define them. Both images and SVG have methods for explicitly defining their width and summit.

            <img src="/path/to-epitome.jpg" width="40" height="40" />  <svg width="40px" height="40px" viewBox="0 0 200 200">   <polygon points="80,0 120,0 120,80 200,80 200,120 120,120 120,200 80,200 80,120 0,120 0,80 80,fourscore" /> </svg>          
Prepare SVGs for a white background

Many of the big gaps on the sites nosotros looked at looked similar empty space, but they were really white SVGs that blew up to full size and blended into the white background.

So, yep, using the proper width and tiptop attributes is a good idea to prevent monstrous icons, but we can also do something about that white-on-white situation. Using properties like fill up and make full-rule as attributes will work hither.

            <!-- Icon will be red by default --> <svg viewBox="-241 243 16 16" width="100px" fill up="#ff0000">   <path d="K-229.two,244c-1.seven,0-3.1,1.iv-3.8,2.8c-0.7-1.4-2.ane-2.viii-three.8-2.8c-2.3,0-4.two,1.9-4.two,4.2c0,4.7,4.viii,six,8,ten.6  c3.1-4.6,8-6.1,eight-x.6C-225,245.9-226.9,244-229.2,244L-229.two,244z"/> </svg>          
            /* ...and it's still reddish when CSS is enabled */ svg {   fill up: #ff0000; }          

See the Pen
Define SVG Width Aspect by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham)
on CodePen.

Characterization those buttons!

Lastly, if buttons are initially empty, they need to have visible fallback content. If they use a background image and a title for what the do, utilise a span containing the title text then add together aria-subconscious="true" and then information technology doesn't sound like the screen reader is reading the button characterization twice (e.g. VoiceOver says, "Add together push button Add" instead).

            <button class="btn-icon" title="Add together">   <span grade="btn-label" aria-subconscious="true">Add together</span> </button>          

Then the CSS tin be something like this:

            .btn-icon {   background: url(path/to/icon.svg) 0 0 / 100% 100%;   height: 40px;   width: 40px; }  .btn-label {   display: cake;   overflow: hidden;   acme: 0; }          

If there are <li> elements acting equally buttons, they tin can remain, simply they should be static, and the contents should exist placed in a push button.

Now, if the icon is an SVG, we can ensure the title tooltip can however be seen by using aria-labelledby and assigning the id to the title.

            <button>   <svg width="40px" superlative="40px" viewBox="0 0 200 200" aria-labelledby="btn-championship">     <title id="btn-title">Add together</title>     <polygon points="lxxx,0 120,0 120,80 200,fourscore 200,120 120,120 120,200 80,200 lxxx,120 0,120 0,lxxx 80,lxxx" />   </svg> </button>          

Conclusion

Information technology can be like shooting fish in a barrel to either forget or be afraid to check how a site appears when CSS isn't bachelor to make the UI expect as good as intended. Afterwards a brief tour of the Not-CSS Spider web™, nosotros saw just how of import CSS is to the overall design and experience of sites, both modest and large.

And, like any tool we have in our set up, leaning also heavily on CSS to handle the functionality and behavior of elements can lead to poor experiences when it's non around to do its magic. We've seen the same exist true of sites that lean too heavily on JavaScript. This isn't to say that we should not apply them and rely on them, but to recall that they are not impenetrable on their own and need proper fallbacks to ensure an optimal experience is nonetheless available with or without our tooling.

Seen in that lite, CSS is really a layer of progressive enhancement. The bureaucracy, form controls, and other elements should also remain intact under their user amanuensis styles. The look and feel, while important, is second when it comes to making sure elements are functional at their core.

schroederupothe.blogspot.com

Source: https://css-tricks.com/that-time-i-tried-browsing-the-web-without-css/

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