RE: ACCESSKEY on FORM controls

I think having a visual indication of the availability of the ACCESSKEY is
important and we need to have something in the UA guidelines.
Jon


At 11:57 PM 6/18/98 -0700, Greg Lowney wrote:
>I would add that users of Windows and some other operating systems are used
>to finding access keys on nearly all dialogs and forms. Keyboard-centric
>users find they save time and effort, and this is even more important for
>users who have difficulty typing. We consider it a critical goal that
>applications and forms written in HTML be no less accessible than those
>written with other technologies.
>
>Another suggestion might be that UA provide an option to visually indicate
>the access key for any element, such as by appending a constructed string to
>the end of the label or even inserting a textual label where there was none.
>This would certainly alter the presentation and layout of the page, but no
>worse than the ability to force all ALT= text to be displayed in place of
>images regardless of the image's size.
>
>	-----Original Message-----
>	From:	Charles (Chuck) Oppermann [SMTP:chuckop@microsoft.com]
>	Sent:	Thursday, June 18, 1998 4:30 PM
>	To:	'jkrieger@cast.org'; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>	Subject:	RE: ACCESSKEY on FORM controls
>
>	The Microsoft Enable web site uses ACCESSKEY=Q to get to the
>QuickLink list
>	box of choices.  A experienced user of the site can go in, press
>ALT+Q,
>	arrow to the correct link and press Enter to get to it.  If using
>Tab
>	navigation, they would have to wade through a long series of links.
>
>
>	Large forms will have difficulty with assigning unique identifiers.
>	ACCESSKEY comes in handy for HTML dialogs and smaller forms.  I
>would say
>	that if your form is so large that you cannot come up with unique
>	ACCESSKEY's, then it's a usability problem and suggestion that the
>page be
>	broken up.
>
>	-----Original Message-----
>	From: Josh Krieger [mailto:jkrieger@cast.org]
>	Sent: Thursday, June 18, 1998 8:31 AM
>	To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>	Subject: ACCESSKEY on FORM controls
>
>
>	> 8.9. Furnish keyboard shortcuts for form elements
>
>	This guideline's example places the ACCESSKEY attribute on the
>	LABEL associated with the form control. 
>
>	1. If this is the preferred method of doing this sort of 
>	thing, then why do all the form controls have ACCESSKEY 
>	attributes themselves?
>
>	2. <BUTTON> and <INPUT TYPE=BUTTON> don't have
>	labels associated with them and the ACCESSKEY should
>	be directly specified on these controls. 
>
>	3. I don't quite understand why we even have access keys
>	for forms at all. It seems to me that for any practical
>	web-based form it isn't really usefull not to mention
>	kind of crazy if the keys change on every web page.
>	On some forms, because of their size, using accesskeys
>	would be impossible. Does someone have a comprehensive 
>	vision of how this is supposed to be used?
>
>	Josh Krieger
>	CAST
> 
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 Friday, 19 June 1998 10:50:13 UTC