Re: [DHTML Style Guide] Tablist: why alt+del?

Chris Blouch wrote:

> I spent quite a bit of time trying to implement keyboard shortcuts  
> that didn't interfere with either the OS, browser or AT and after  
> doing a lot of testing with XP, Jaws, IE and FF the available list  
> was very very short. I believe one of the ideas going into the DHTML  
> style guide was that ARIA would allow an AT to know that the user  
> had focus on a widget and get out of the way. Without that it would  
> be nearly impossible to find a set that works cross-AT, cross- 
> browser and cross-platform. Do Mac Voiceover users care that control- 
> J jumps cells with Jaws on Windows? Do Windows users care that  
> voiceover users jump between headers using control+alt+h? I suggest  
> that the set of available key combinations that are as agnostic as  
> the web sites we want to implement them on is nearly null. In light  
> of that, a clean slate approach seems appropriate. Given no  
> constraints on keystrokes other than trying to give a nod to what is  
> common (familiar) in existing implementations to lower cognitive  
> load, what would make the most sense for navigating and controlling  
> widgets?

For what it's worth, I completely agree with you. The argument I've  
heard against that is that there needs to be a consistent mechanism  
for keyboard navigation even if not controlled by AT like a screen  
reader. To that, I replied that the user agent should implement the  
key commands.

For example, I can activate the menus or form controls in Safari with  
or without VoiceOver. The same should be true of all ARIA widgets in  
that UA and AT control web application widgets in the exact same way  
as the desktop equivalents. Although I firmly believe this is the  
right approach, not all browsers currently support DOM mutation events  
properly, and that feature is required for this approach to be a  
practical solution.

At this point, I've started mostly ignoring the DHTML Style Guide as  
an overly-complex, but nice-to-have stop-gap measure until user agents  
support all these controls natively. I'm not saying this to make  
enemies in the DHTML Style Guide Working Group, but that will probably  
happen anyway. I'd be more on board with the more simple approach  
Victor mentioned: very basic navigational controls, including the  
keystroke to open a contextual menu that contains all the more-complex  
methods of navigation and control.

James

Received on Wednesday, 19 November 2008 20:23:38 UTC