RE: ACCESSKEY attribute

As far as how to declare for a page what ACCESSKEY's are supported I have
done the following:

At the top left corner of the page I place a label (of fixed size and
location) with a decription of the page and it's accesskeys. The text is set
to 2pt and the visibility attribute is set to hidden. From the sighted
perspective, nothing is there. From the screen reader perspective there is a
good deal of descriptive text. I also assign this label an accesskey ('m')
to allow keyboard to the label. Below is an example of what I am talking
about from a SAMI demo I did for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

<!-- Invisible text for screen reader access -->
<Label STYLE="visibility: hidden; align: left; width: 200; height: 14; top:
0; font-size:2pt; " AccessKey="m">
Vladka Meed. Interview on smuggling in the ghettos... Menu choices.
Biography. Alt. "B" ... Transcript. Alt. "T" 
... Review. Alt. "R" ... Video. Alt. "V" ... View. properties. Large. Print.
Toggle. Alt. "A" ... Contrast. Toggle. Alt. "C"</Label>

Thoughts?

David.
________________________
David A. Bolnick
Accessibility Program Manager: Multimedia, Telecommunications
Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA  98052
Web: http://microsoft.com/enable


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	M. T. Hakkinen [SMTP:hakkinen@dev.prodworks.com]
> Sent:	Monday, February 16, 1998 11:03 AM
> To:	w3c-wai-gl@w3.org; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Cc:	rjsteffe@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu
> Subject:	RE: ACCESSKEY attribute
> 
> We've been looking at how to deal with the ACCESSKEY in webspeak. Because 
> we are aware of the platform, we can announce the correct modifier.  The 
> determination of how the access key modifier (Alt or Cmd) is presented 
> should be less a job of the content author and more a function of the 
> browser or screen reader.    In our case, the browser will announce the 
> modifier and accesskey for elements which have them defined.
> 
> When to use access keys is a great question.  I think they make sense in 
> frequently used web forms or pages, especially when it allows the user to 
> jump from section to section of a lengthy form. Being able to activate 
> buttons and selectors like radio buttons is useful, but the user won't 
> generally know they are there until having explored the full page or they 
> can recognize that the page follows some form of standardization (e.g., S 
> for activating the Search button, for english pages).
> 
> As for choosing appropriate accesskey codes, this seems an age old
> problem. 
>  The old rule for me has always been mnemonic selection codes and
> operating 
> environment standards whenever possible and practical.    Arbitrary, 
> alphabet lists or numeric selectors don't aid general usability.  There
> was 
> a great paper on selectors by Gary Perlman from the early eighties if you 
> want a reference. In certain national language environments, Japanese, for
> 
> example, mnemonic selectors may not be practical and numeric or alpha 
> selectors need to be used.
> 
> One problem that concerns is me is how to handle conflicts between keys
> the 
> browser and or user may have defined in their environment.  Which takes 
> precedence?
> 
> Mark
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jon Gunderson [SMTP:jongund@staff.uiuc.edu]
> Sent:	Monday, February 16, 1998 12:45 PM
> To:	w3c-wai-gl@w3.org; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Cc:	rjsteffe@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu
> Subject:	ACCESSKEY attribute
> 
> Does anyone have a good design example of how to use the ACCESSKEY to
> increase the accessibility of a page.  I am working on a project to create
> some accessible WWW based educational technology and our group has been
> trying to figure out how to use the accesskey feature to enhance
> accessibility.  Some of the problems we are facing with the access key is
> the need to explicitly state the presence of the access key in the
> document, but different Browsers may require different modifier keys to
> use
> the access key.  For eample in MS-Explorer your need to type ALT-S for
> ACCESSKEY="S", and on some other browser it may be something else like
> Ctril-S or just S by itself.  So you just can't tell people to type S or
> ALT-S?
> Another issue is consistancy, does anybody have any ideas on how to assign
> keys so people can learn when to expect an access key?
> Thanks,
> Jon
> 
> 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, 16 February 1998 14:58:08 UTC