Re: accesskeys - standards for which keys do what?

I think the main requirement be that the user agent provides information
about the presence of an access key.
Jon


At 11:05 PM 1/29/99 +0000, David Meadows wrote:
>Chris Croome <chris@atomism.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Are there any standard access keys assignments? E.g. Alt-S for search or
>>whatever? And if not is there a danger that every site will have a
>different set
>>of keys for people to learn?
>
>
>Well every site on the web currently has a different (non-intuitive)
>interface for the user to learn, so why should access keys be an exception
>to this?
>
>Seriously, this is an important usability issue. Ideally, all software
>presents the user with a common interface. Unfortunately the interface
>standards are different on every platform. How do you make a web page
>interface match what users see in their other software when you don't know
>what their other software will look like?
>
>Microsoft define common Windows access keys and rules for selecting access
>keys in "Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design" (Microsoft
>Press). But if you follow these guidelines you will probably confuse your
>Mac and Unix users...
>
>Shouldn't the user agent set the access keys based on the standards for the
>platform it runs on? The HTML mark-up should "suggest", rather than dictate,
>what the access key will be. The user agent will then determine how to
>implement it appropriately. The situation would be analogous to the way that
>HTML "suggests" the presentation of the text but the browser actually
>determines how it will be displayed.
>
>--
>David Meadows [ Technical Writer | Information Developer ]
>DNRC Minister for Littorasy * david@heroes.force9.co.uk
>"He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in
> stronger and better light than his perishing mortal eye can see
> does not imagine at all."     -- William Blake
> 
Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: 217-244-5870
Fax: 217-333-0248
E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu
WWW:	http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
	http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess

Received on Monday, 1 February 1999 10:09:15 UTC