heads up re: coordinating on requirements for hotkeys

One of the things HTML5 needs is a better-engineered support
for shortcuts or hotkeys or whatever you want to call the
category that ACCESSKEY was supposed to support.

In PFWG we are trying to follow the following "proposal
work-up outline" that we got from Chris Wilson:

a) state the functional requirement
b) run proposed solutions by those who would have to
implement them before proposing them in the Working Group
(in this case to HTML WG).

For ACCESSKEY re-engineering we need your help with this.
On this topic we are touching something that you are working
on at the same time.

You say the browser has to inform the user about shortcuts
that it can recognize.  Our job is to get HTML set up so
that the browser can recognize the shortcuts it defines. [Note 1]

We have been going around on how to state the functional
requirement in this area.  Gregory Rosmaita has an action
item to summarize the discussion on the XTECH Wiki.

The last time we ran this question through UAAG it
revolved around the draft at
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2005JulSep/0005.html
.. and y'all caught the absense of a 'discoverable'
requirement.  [Note 2]

Since that time, the XHTML2 Working Group has developed
the XHTML Access Module, which has a lot of strengths.
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-access/

In any case, please stand by for a request to look
at draft functional requirements in this area, again.

Al

Note 1: In WAI-ARIA, on the other hand, hotkeys defined
by the scripted widgets and applications don't expose
these shortcuts in a browser-recognizable way, and hence
the applications must provide discoverability themselves.

Note 2: This is where following the WCAG
outline of perceivable, operable, comprehensible
bites us, because the hotkey index could be something
that is not presented by default but is accessed by
a well-known and operable action such as the way F1
brings up Help.  'Discoverable' is the basic requirement,
even 'though it cuts across the perceivable, operable,
comprehensible dimensions and can't be allocated to
just one of those.  It needs to be perceivable, either
directly, or after the application of one step of operable
and comprehensible user action.

Received on Tuesday, 7 October 2008 21:06:31 UTC