Re: AccessKeys and what to use

This brings up a big issue about the difference between theory and practise,
and about what universal really means.

For Internet Explorer running in english on Windows this is a reasonable
approach. But for many phone-based devices the numerals 0 - 9 are the only
available keys, and for other, better designed systems, any key or even any
character is available.

I haven't tested whether explorer actually supports numbers as accesskeys
(the specification requires that every unicode character including numbers in
many writing systems are available) but if so my personal feeling is that it
might be smartest to start with those.

In general it is important to work out what are the variables in the
different implementations (as far as I know, Explorer, Amaya, iCab,
Phone.com's browser are all implementing accesskeys, and I believe that
NTTDoCoMo browsers do too). Which involves making decisions for today which
are clearly not likely to be good long-term decisions, and should therefore
be realigned when good implementation of accessiblity features (in this case
I think there are specification problems to be resolved too) start to appear.

Cheers

Charles McCN

On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Graham Oliver wrote:

  I am interested in choosing effective shortcut letters
  for AccessKeys.
  By effective I mean ones that don't interfere with
  either

  1. Keyboard use of a browser
  2. Keyboard use of JAWS and WindowEyes

  As an example I would rule out using

  F
  E
  V
  A
  T
  H

  becuase these provide access to the main menu bar in
  Internet Explorer 5.5

  Also 'D' because this provides access to the address
  bar.

  Does this seem reasonable?

  If so, if anyone would like to post or send to me
  other shortcuts that are good not to use then I will
  post the results on line

  Cheers
  Graham Oliver


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-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
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Received on Tuesday, 21 August 2001 20:33:55 UTC