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Re: accesskey

for

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Nov 9, 2010 10:45AM

Good point about the difficulty in knowing your user, Jared. Another point is that, even if you are in a closed environment, all you can know is the shortcut keys used by the users in that environment at that time. For example, if that environment is an intranet, the hiring of a new employee who needs a different form of AT from that used by your previous pool of employees could lead to a conflict between access keys.

And, conceivably, AT already in use could be improved with new features -- and new access keys to operate them -- which could also mess things up.

So even in a closed environment, the best you could say about your custom set of access keys is, "There are no conflicts for now."

Cliff Tyllick
Usability assessment coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED>


>>> On 11/9/2010 at 8:48 AM, in message < <EMAIL REMOVED> >, Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
The first WebAIM screen reader user survey showed very mixed results
for a question about access key usage -
http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey/#accesskeys As many
users always or often use access keys as never or seldom use them. The
difficulty is that unless you are in a closed environment, you can
never know the end user's shortcut keys to know whether you've created
a conflict.

Jared Smith
WebAIM