RE: advice about link activation keys

Interesting question. For some reason, I thought this might track back to
text browsers. I seem to recall using the space bar to initiate a link
somewhere back in the early days of the web. It wasn't Lynx. I'm wondering
whether it was a Un*x browser? 

Mike Paciello
Cell: +1 603.566-7713


-----Original Message-----
From: James Craig [mailto:jcraig@apple.com] 
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2012 12:42 PM
To: Steve Faulkner
Cc: Joseph Scheuhammer; Michael Cooper; W3C WAI-XTECH
Subject: Re: advice about link activation keys

Seems like the "space or enter/return" behavior language was likely intended
for buttons, not links. Maybe the language was carried over to links by
accident.


On Jan 15, 2012, at 5:45 AM, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-practices/#link
> 
> states:
> "Link (widget)
> 
> #
> Characteristics:
> ...
> Space or Enter executes the link."
> 
> I don't believe that the use of space is a commonly implemented design 
> pattern for link activation, do you have any data on which browsers 
> implement such behavior?
> 
> 
> 
> --
> with regards
> 
> Steve Faulkner
> Technical Director - TPG
> 
> www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com | 
> www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner
> HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives - 
> dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/ Web Accessibility Toolbar - 
> www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html
>

Received on Monday, 16 January 2012 02:30:52 UTC