- From: Tom Croucher <tcroucher@netalleynetworks.com>
- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 13:56:00 +0100
- To: "'Yvette P. Hoitink'" <y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl>, "'WCAG List'" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Surely this is user agents issue rather than an accesskey issue. Opera uses an accesskey mode which turns off its default shortcuts while in that mode. Since you can toggle the mode on and off you know exactly what you are getting. It seems to me that developers shouldn't feel hamstrung by any implementation (however large the IE market slice is) of accesskeys in UAs, there are 36 keys to use and we should use them. On complex sites having an intuitive letter for the accesskeys can make a big difference. My two pence. Tom Co-founder Netalley Networks (http://www.netalleynetworks.com), BSc(Hons) Computing Student / Information Services Staff University of Sunderland (http://www.sunderland.ac.uk), Accessibility Co-ordinator Plone CMS (http://www.plone.org) -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Yvette P. Hoitink Sent: 26 September 2003 13:48 To: 'WCAG List' Subject: RE: Accesskey: there are "techniques"? Roberto Scano asked: > There are some techniques about a "map" for the accesskey? > > eg: > > 0 - Home Page > 1 - Access Key page > 2 - Site Map > 3 - Contact e-Mail ... One big problem I always have with accesskeys is that there is a risk of 'hijacking' key combinations that are already in use by the user. For example, Alt-H opens the Help menu in an English version of Internet Explorer. But when I attach H as an accesskey, suddenly Alt-H can no longer be used to open the Help menu. Also, especially people with disabilities may have assigned keyboard shortcuts to functions they use a lot which would get overridden. Adapting another persons environment is _not_ what I call accessibility. For this reason, I only use numbers as accesskeys. I tend to use 1 for the start page, 2 (to) for the skiplink (which goes directly TO the content) and 4 (for) for the searchbox. I use 5-0 for the main navigation links . This leaves me 3 another important link, such as the contact page. These keys are explained in the Help section of the website, which is referenced by <link rel="help">. Should we make it a best practice to use numbers as accesskeys? I think the hijacking problem is a serious one which needs to be addressed. Sometimes, however, I do use letters for accesskeys, especially in complex forms. I then assign the first letter of each label as an accesskey (and make it so that each label has a different first letter). Using CSS, I give the first letter of the labels a different appearance. These accesskeys are once again explained in the help section of the website. You could even make it so that a list of accesskeys is inserted into the page from CSS if the page is accessed by a non-visual browser. This is a CSS2-only feature which is not widely supported yet by assistive technologies. (In fact I don't know any that support this but am not too familiar with all the AT's out there). Yvette Hoitink CEO Heritas, Enschede, The Netherlands
Received on Friday, 26 September 2003 08:59:11 UTC