Re: Temporary semi-solution to access key debate: support them but disable them by default

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:57:21 +1000, Daniel Land <daniel.land@gmail.com>  
wrote:

> There's much debate between webmasters about whether access keys
> should or should not be implemented on a website. Access keys are very
> useful for many web users with accessibility needs, and many people
> depend on them being well implemented by websites; however, access
> keys interfere with some assistive technology devices

Actually, they often interfere with the browser itself, in a couple of  
implementations that are unfortunately widespread but not very good (they  
followed the advice given in the HTML 4 spec too carefully - and it wasn't  
helpful advice as it turns out).

> By scripting your website on the server-side with a language like PHP,
> ASP, JSP...etc., in order to support access keys by the user's request
> (via GET or POST variables) but with access keys disabled by default,
> this entirely counters the negative effects of access keys whilst
> making limited but considerable use of the positives.
>
> Has anyone else implemented this strategy? What do you think about the  
> idea?

Yes, this has been done before. UBAccess did it years ago, and others have  
done it too. It seems like a reasonable workaround until the  
implementations that cause the problems are fixed :(

cheers

Chaals

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Received on Saturday, 29 September 2007 04:59:13 UTC