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RE: web access keys

for

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Aug 18, 2005 5:40PM

Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC wrote:
> Thomas,
>
> I took the time to post your finding (regarding mapping of
> access key F on us.gov) and received the following response:
>
> "Dear Visitor,
>
> Thanks for sending your message to FirstGov.gov, and thanks for
> pointing this oversight out to us. Per your message, we will assign
> different letters for the access key that don't conflict with
> Microsoft defaults. We will also assign different access key letters
> for the two separate links that go to answers.firstgov and
> firstgov.gov/questions. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you
> ever have additional comments or suggestions for the site."
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Norman Robinson

Hi Norman,

It was me that pointed out the issues <smile> - No worries. Well, if
you can get them to re-think keymappings, you're a good man indeed.
Perhaps you can point the "them" to this chart, so that they might think
beyond Windows:

Accesskeys and Reserved Keystroke Combinations:
http://www.wats.ca/resources/accesskeysandkeystrokes/38

Given that they are only looking for 2 keystrokes, I recall that ALT + X
is still available (go figure), and/or numeric selectors, which, while
they still have issues, are the safer choices...

(Better yet, dump the accesskeys altogether - empirical proof suggests
that nobody is using them at that site, otherwise they probably would
have heard about it before now, no?)

JF
--
John Foliot <EMAIL REMOVED>
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca
Phone: 1-613-482-7053