RE: Accesskey: there are "techniques"?

Sounds like accesskeys should have been implemented as two key sequence.....


Just claim one letter or character -- and then one more key gets you
somewhere.

Kind of a Namespace like approach....

Actually, with the modifier it is already two keys. So this would only have
made it 3 -- but avoided collisions.......

Hmmmmmm

Gregg

 -- ------------------------------ 
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center 
University of Wisconsin-Madison 


-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Yvette P. Hoitink
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 7:48 AM
To: 'WCAG List'
Subject: RE: Accesskey: there are "techniques"?


Roberto Scano asked:
> There are some techniques about a "map" for the accesskey?
> 
> eg:
> 
> 0 - Home Page
> 1 - Access Key page
> 2 - Site Map
> 3 - Contact e-Mail ...

One big problem I always have with accesskeys is that there is a risk of
'hijacking' key combinations that are already in use by the user. For
example, Alt-H opens the Help menu in an English version of Internet
Explorer. But when I attach H as an accesskey, suddenly Alt-H can no longer
be used to open the Help menu. Also, especially people with disabilities may
have assigned keyboard shortcuts to functions they use a lot which would get
overridden. Adapting another persons environment is _not_ what I call
accessibility. 

For this reason, I only use numbers as accesskeys. I tend to use 1 for the
start page, 2 (to) for the skiplink (which goes directly TO the content) and
4 (for) for the searchbox. I use 5-0 for the main navigation links . This
leaves me 3 another important link, such as the contact page. These keys are
explained in the Help section of the website, which is referenced by <link
rel="help">. 

Should we make it a best practice to use numbers as accesskeys? I think the
hijacking problem is a serious one which needs to be addressed. 

Sometimes, however, I do use letters for accesskeys, especially in complex
forms. I then assign the first letter of each label as an accesskey (and
make it so that each label has a different first letter). Using CSS, I give
the first letter of the labels a different appearance. These accesskeys are
once again explained in the help section of the website. 

You could even make it so that a list of accesskeys is inserted into the
page from CSS if the page is accessed by a non-visual browser. This is a
CSS2-only feature which is not widely supported yet by assistive
technologies. (In fact I don't know any that support this but am not too
familiar with all the AT's out there).

Yvette Hoitink
CEO Heritas, Enschede, The Netherlands