- From: Jon Gunderson <jongund@staff.uiuc.edu>
- Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 09:10:06 -0600
- To: "David Meadows" <david@heroes.force9.co.uk>, "wai" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
I think the main requirement be that the user agent provides information about the presence of an access key. Jon At 11:05 PM 1/29/99 +0000, David Meadows wrote: >Chris Croome <chris@atomism.demon.co.uk> wrote: >>Are there any standard access keys assignments? E.g. Alt-S for search or >>whatever? And if not is there a danger that every site will have a >different set >>of keys for people to learn? > > >Well every site on the web currently has a different (non-intuitive) >interface for the user to learn, so why should access keys be an exception >to this? > >Seriously, this is an important usability issue. Ideally, all software >presents the user with a common interface. Unfortunately the interface >standards are different on every platform. How do you make a web page >interface match what users see in their other software when you don't know >what their other software will look like? > >Microsoft define common Windows access keys and rules for selecting access >keys in "Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design" (Microsoft >Press). But if you follow these guidelines you will probably confuse your >Mac and Unix users... > >Shouldn't the user agent set the access keys based on the standards for the >platform it runs on? The HTML mark-up should "suggest", rather than dictate, >what the access key will be. The user agent will then determine how to >implement it appropriately. The situation would be analogous to the way that >HTML "suggests" the presentation of the text but the browser actually >determines how it will be displayed. > >-- >David Meadows [ Technical Writer | Information Developer ] >DNRC Minister for Littorasy * david@heroes.force9.co.uk >"He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in > stronger and better light than his perishing mortal eye can see > does not imagine at all." -- William Blake > 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, 1 February 1999 10:09:15 UTC