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RE: Access Keys

for

From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: Mar 27, 2002 8:32PM

> I'd prefer not to put it in the ALT attribute as this pop-ups up visually
> and I don't want to confuse people who know nothing about adaptive
> technology (read: managers...)

<OPINION>

Educate the managers WHY it is there, and why it should be there. Providing
access keys are an enhancement which benefits numerous users, not just the
visually impaired. Sell the feature, be proud of the fact that it is there,
and make the managers feel proud about it too. Convince them that it's a
cause for "bragging rights", it sets you above the competiton. I've not
seen your site so it is difficult to say if and where it would be
appropriate, but why not provide a section "What's an Access Key?" within
your site, explaing what it is, how it works, and why you include it on your
site. Advocacy about the benefits of accessible design is a difficult
proposition, but a good "spin-meister" can surely find a way of using it to
shed your company/organization in a positive light. A little yellow
mouseover box in IE or Netscape should not make a manager cringe.

</OPINION>

While the TITLE attribute was approved in December 1999 with the adoption of
HTML 4.01 (actually early with 4.0, but lets not quibble) it is not yet
universal and is not supported by many exisitng "user agents", whereas the
ALT attribute is. And, since you are doing like I and using a 1X1 pixel gif
to insert within your anchor tags, I will go one step further and presume
that it would be located fairly near the x,y axis of 0,0. While the chance
of somebody actually mousing over that specific area long enough for the
"tool tip" to show up exists, I would suggest that it is statistically going
to be rare. So where exactly is the harm?

> And if there's not a title attribute, what does it read?

The text within the opening and closing anchor tags

> Nah. Just lazy. It's a 1x1 transparent gif.

tsk, tsk, tsk <grin>

JF


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