- From: Dillmann, Nina <ndillmann@tarrantcounty.com>
- Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 13:56:11 -0500
- To: "'w3c-wai-ig@w3.org'" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Jukka Korpela wrote: >For "Skip Nav", are access keys needed at all? Isn't it sufficient that >there is a link to the start of the main content, or otherwise past the >navigation? It could be a "visually hidden" link, i.e. a transparent >single-pixel GIF with something like >alt="Main content of the page." >Such links have their problems, but I'd say that they are, as a whole, more >tolerable than the harmful side effects of access keys. One of the issues with this solution is that some search engines will ban your site if you use "visually hidden" links. I am not sure about the transparent single-pixel GIF (Anyone know about this?). On a commercial site, I would say that this is a major drawback. Just FYI, from a web design seminar that I attended, we were given the following items which can ban you from engines: a. meta refresh or meta redirect with value of 0 or 1 b. invisible or hidden text c. white text on white background d. overly small text e. submitting more often than 2-3 months Not that we have that problem in government, but I have run across it with commercial sites that I have developed. Nina L. Dillmann Web Portal Development & Design Tarrant County Information Technology Telephone: (817) 212-7459 -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Jukka Korpela Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 8:24 AM To: Aware-Techniques; Webaim-Forum; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org Subject: RE: Access Keys - your collective help is urgently requested! John Foliot wrote: > - -a large group of institutional developers have > been recommended to implement a series of "Standardized" Access Keys > assigned to "Skip Nav" functionality across multiple web > sites. - - they have recommended > the use of "Alt+1" and "Alt+2". Users of IBM's Home Page Reader may > recognise these as being "Alt+1 = Headings Reading Mode" and > "Alt+2 = Text View". This is a mess. > It's a mess. It's a frustrating mess. I had thought, and the consensus of some discussion has been, as far as I know, that using digit keys as access keys is the safest way to avoid clashes with browsers' built-in shortcuts. I had even documented and recommended such usage: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html#assign I hadn't used IBM HPR enough to have noted the problem. How serious is it in practice? How often are those shortcuts used, and are there alternative ways of doing what they do? > Current thinking is to move to "Alt+X", Alt+Y" and Alt+Z" I'm afraid any letters as access keys are reserved by one or (probably) more programs for some use. But if you're going to use letters, then those letters at the end of the English alphabet presumably have less use than others, just because it's more difficult to treat them as mnemonic in any way. (Well, X could be eXit, Y might be Yank, Z might be Zoom. Actually, Opera seems to use Alt+X and Alt+Z for moving within the history list; don't ask me why.) It is virtually impossible to test all the browsers, since the shortcut assignments vary even between different language versions. And it is not sufficient to consider shortcuts in assistive technology. The great majority of users use browsers that have some support to access keys, and this means that some built-in shortcuts will be overridden _without the users even knowing_ before they try to use some shortcut they are familiar with and observing something strange. For "Skip Nav", are access keys needed at all? Isn't it sufficient that there is a link to the start of the main content, or otherwise past the navigation? It could be a "visually hidden" link, i.e. a transparent single-pixel GIF with something like alt="Main content of the page." Such links have their problems, but I'd say that they are, as a whole, more tolerable than the harmful side effects of access keys. -- Jukka Korpela, senior adviser TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre http://www.tieke.fi/ Diffuse Business Guide to Web Accessibility and Design for All: http://www.diffuse.org/accessibility.html
Received on Friday, 13 September 2002 14:57:41 UTC