RE: Accesskeys and other link levels

Hello Isabelle,

Ah, Accesskeys...  We have done quite some research on this topic and have
posted a number of articles about them at our website www.wats.ca

In a nutshell, after taking a long hard look at Accesskeys, we have
determined that they really don't provide a whole bunch of true
accessibility, and the use of Accesskeys is fraught with implementation and
"universality" issues, the least of which being that across multiple user
agents and adaptive technology solutions the majority of available keystroke
combinations is reduced to virtually no real choices.  Even the emerging UK
quasi-standard (which uses numeric values) has conflicts with at least one
screen reading technology as well as being "non-functional" in a number of
older and current browsers: Opera for one (which started supporting
Accesskeys in Version 7) does not support the use of numeric values...
(oops!)

The specific articles on our site are:
http://www.wats.ca/resources/accesskeys/19 - Using Accesskeys - Is it worth
it?
http://www.wats.ca/articles/accesskeyconflicts/37 - More reasons why we
don't use accesskeys
http://www.wats.ca/resources/accesskeysandkeystrokes/38 - Accesskeys and
Reserved Keystroke Combinations
http://www.wats.ca/articles/accesskeyalternatives/52 - Link Relationships as
an Alternative to Accesskeys

See also:
http://www.wats.ca/resources/jawskeystrokes/9 - Working with JAWS: Keystroke
Quick Reference Chart

Hope this helps...

JF
--
John Foliot  foliot@wats.ca
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca   1.866.932.4878 (North America)




> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
> Behalf Of Isabelle
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 3:57 PM
> To: WAI Interest Group
> Subject: Accesskeys and other link levels
>
>
>
> OK. So, I'm adding accessibility to my site(s) and I have added the
> accesskeys to top level links but what about 2nd and 3rd level links?  If
> the person is mobility impaired, wouldn't they want access keys for
> *everything* or maybe I'm just not *getting it* and someone can
> clarify this
> for me.  :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Isabelle
> http://www.is.visisoul.com (not up to my own accessible
> standards... yet)...
> :)
>
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 6 January 2004 16:54:21 UTC