- From: Stark, Peter N <Peter.N.Stark@sonyericsson.com>
- Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 13:32:52 +0200
- To: <wai-xtech@w3.org>
Accesskeys has been a problem for us too. When we implemented accesskeys in the SonyEricsson T68i XHTML browser, we came across the following problems: 1. Content authors cannot rely on accesskeys, there is no guarantee that a specified accesskey will get assigned in the browser (the key may be unavailable on the platform, etc.). 2. Users do not know when accesskeys can be used. 3. What happens when the accesskey is pressed? We concluded there was nothing we could do about (1), except to say that accesskeys is an unreliable mechanism, an optimization that may or may not work. The normal way of activating a link is always available. For device independant Web pages we cannot specify exactly what keys must be available on a platform. The SonyEricsson T68i XHTML browser shows, visually, which accesskeys are available on a Web page. That solves (2) to some extent. The visual indication is a small "bullet" with the accesskeys on it, that is displayed right next to the link. Unfortunately, this affects the presentation of the Web page. When the user press the key, the link is activated directly. This is implied by the text in HTML 4.01, http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#access-keys. This behavior I think is the best, the purpose of the accesskey is to provide a faster way of accessing a link (it is a shortcut). -- Peter.N.Stark @SonyEricsson.com
Received on Monday, 30 September 2002 07:30:51 UTC