RE: Accesskey: there are "techniques"?

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