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Re: accesskey assignments (now more 508)

for

From: Emma Jane Hogbin
Date: Dec 19, 2002 11:23PM

On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 07:28:08AM -0500, Mark Rew wrote:
> Anything that reduces the amount of navigation links I have to listen to with
> my screen reader is appreciated. The question comes down to policy. Does the
> standards that the Canadian Government are using allow for accesskeys?

Yes. But (there's always a but) some pages that I have found in the
official Canadian documentation (which is very hard to follow) advocate skip
to links as The New Way To Do It. So we have a mix of both. :)

> In the
> US we use the Section 508 1104.22 standard for Web sites which requires a skip
> navigation link. If you are required to only use links for skipping to
> subportions of the page then I would recommend the skip to contents
> first.Otherwise, I support the use of accesskeys.

I'm not sure I understand this fully...I think you are saying:
- first follow the policy
- second use skip to content links
- third use accesskeys
Can you expand on this? (Sorry to be such a brat...) Does this mean that
you like links more than you like accesskeys, or does this mean that you
think links are better that accesskeys for some isolated functions? Or
do you mean that if there were no policy to follow you would pick
accesskeys?

For anyone that's currently *using* accesskeys to navigate sites, here are
a few questions:
1. is there a limit to the number of accesskeys you use on a site?
(e.g. "I can't remember more than 4 things")

2. what do you use accesskeys for the most?

3. are there any sites that get tab indexing right? (It always
seems like a disaster waiting to happen to me.)

4. if you had accesskeys available to you on a discussion board
site (like UBB) would you use them to skip to the next message or
go to the top of a thread?


Thanks for your input!

emma :)

--
Emma Jane Hogbin
[[ 416 417 2868 ][ www.xtrinsic.com ]]


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