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Re: keyboard accessibility (WCAG) vs keyboard shortcuts?

for

From: Chaals McCathie Nevile
Date: Apr 23, 2016 10:34AM

On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 03:28:42 +0100, Sean Murphy < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> All,
>
> Providing shortcut keys in a pure Application mode Web site, would this
> be regarded as a breach to WCAG 2.0 (AA) or best practise? The web site
> being reviewed everything is in the application mode when using a screen
> reader.

The question is not what happens for screen readers, but for all the other
users.

If there is a case for keyboard shortcuts, there are a couple of things
you need to do in practice:

1. Ensure the user can find out what they are.
2. Make sure they work for all users
3. Ideally, provide a way to ensure that the shortcuts don't over-ride
normal functionality users rely on, and if the shortcuts are still
necessary, allow the user to assign them to somethng that is helpful to
them.

If you put everything into application mode you're running a risk of
seriously going wrong on number 3 - do you really need to do that?

cheers

Chaals

> Sean
>
>> On 20 Apr 2016, at 11:31 PM, Chaals McCathie Nevile
>> < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 20 Apr 2016 13:27:50 +0200, _mallory < <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> <mailto: <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> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> > - - - Find more at
>> http://yandex.com <http://yandex.com/>;
>> >> >> <http://list.webaim.org/>;
>> >> <http://webaim.org/discussion/archives>;
>> >> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> > > > --
Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
<EMAIL REMOVED> - - - Find more at http://yandex.com