- From: Patrick Burke <burke@ucla.edu>
- Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 18:47:18 -0700
- To: "Hoffman, Geoffrey" <ghoffman@aztrib.com>, w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
At 04:55 PM 4/14/2003, Hoffman, Geoffrey wrote: >I've searched the net far and wide, and the W3 site as well, and can't seem >to find a complete reference for the available accesskey attribute values. > >Now that web developers have AOL, IE4, IE5, IE5.5, NS4x, NS6x, NS7x, Opera, >Safari, and even more browsers, it seems there needs to be a list of the >available accesskey values that remain, after subtracting all of the >built-in keyboard commands already taken by the various browsers. There are some old threads on this. I think the result was that the number of unused keys approaches zero as the number of browsers under consideration increases. ... >The problem is best stated in this way: > >The total maximum number of possible accesskey attribute values (47?) is, in >practice, a smaller subset of >{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789-=`[]\;',./} based on the following: > >- Internet Explorer has reserved: > - Alt-f : File Menu > - Alt-e : Edit Menu > - Alt-v : View Menu > - Alt-a : Favorites Menu > - Alt-t : Tools Menu > - Alt-h : Help Menu > - Alt-d : Address Field >[others snipped] Note that these don't all work the same: Most of them jump to selections from the menu bar. This means that even if you define an AccessKey for one of these, you can still get to the menu item by, for example, pressing ALT and then F for the File Menu. ALT-D is different, though: hitting ALT & D in sequence does nothing interesting (in fact it just exits the menu bar). The only way to use the Address Bar command is to hit the keys simultaneously. So defining an Access Key for ALT-D blocks the user from getting to the Address Bar via keyboard. >This also brings up the question, how do you encode a page properly to >support WAI standard(s), which has more than 35 links on a page? In >otherwords, are accessible pages limited to 35 links per page? [Sorry for bad editing, those would be: "{cijklopqrsuxyz0123456789`-=[]\;',./} 35 available access key attribute values." That seems like a very extreme conclusion. On the one hand, I think access keys are much more useful for sections of a page, important form fields, etc., rather than for each individual link. In practical terms, a page with 35 important sections should probably be broken up into smaller pages. Another practical matter is the memorization needed to use the access keys, which limits you to much fewer than 35 for most people. (Most pages that use them wisely have 5 or 6. In fact, as a blind user, there isn't a site that I use frequently enough to memorize the access keys, so I have to look them up, which slows down the navigation process. More trouble than it's worth, in other words.) It also seems very difficult to come up with a scenario where Alt-` or ALT-' would have a mnemonic connection to an item on a page, making these and other punctuation keys much less desirable for access keys. If I don't do it, I'm sure others would point out that Access Keys cross over into user navigation tools that properly should be handled by the user agent. I guess I can't argue with that, but it can still be useful to have a few Access Keys if the page or site structure is very complex. If you use other structural navigation approaches well (proper heading markup, same-page links , clear & consistent layout, among others), then users won't be forced to rely on Access Keys. So, to sum up, Access Keys can be good if used sparingly (far fewer than the maximum possible). However, they are neither necessary (other good techniques exist) nor sufficient (always likely to be a key conflict somewhere) to guarantee accessibility on their own. Just a few thoughts. Thanks for raising the interesting topic, Patrick
Received on Monday, 14 April 2003 21:47:24 UTC