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Re: keyboard accessibility (WCAG) vs keyboard shortcuts?

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From: Chaals McCathie Nevile
Date: Apr 20, 2016 7:31AM

On Wed, 20 Apr 2016 13:27:50 +0200, _mallory < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 11:50:16PM +0200, Chaals McCathie Nevile wrote:
>> On Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:37:25 +0200, Lucy Greco < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> wrote:
>>
>> >intresting i wonder why jaws added twitter key commands the ones that
>> >twitter uses work grate so what whould these key commands be and do
>> that
>> >twitter is not already doing
>>
>> The problem with twitter keys is that they override things which
>> many users expect from their browser, so suddenly something
>> unexpected happens when using a shortcut.
>
> _m: yeah the j/k keys are supposed to move your focus between tweets
> but then in Orca if I'm in browse mode the k is "next link."

Right.

> I like the idea of being able to easily switch between your SR
> commands and page commands, esp since a lot of these pages with
> keyboard shortcuts work better with their shortcuts than if you're
> navigating by focusables or element type.

Yes - applications generally have a good idea about what will work if you
live in that application, which is why any solution needs to allow them to
suggest a set of shortcuts.

But enable the user to change them. If you live on a cyrillic keyboard, it
would be good to be able to change the suggestions to match things that
are useful to you, without each shortcut being a long dance of switching
keyboard, activating the shortcut key, remembering that it breaks
something you normally use for something else, and then switching back.

> The j/k keys are pretty popular, probably because of applications
> like mutt and vim using them: besides Twitter, j and k work in
> the search results of DuckDuckGo and other list-y pages.

They're vi keys, and were common in games controls in the 1980s, because
they're the central home keys for the right hand when touch-typing on a
qwerty keyboard... cue urban legend about horses' backsides and train
guages.

cheers

--
Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
<EMAIL REMOVED> - - - Find more at http://yandex.com