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RE: accesskeys - underlining letters

for

From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: May 16, 2003 5:19AM

Mathew,

The use of Accesskeys *has* been discussed on this list many times, but
welcome to the list anyway <grin>.

There seems to be a split opinion on Accesskeys (See:
http://wats.ca/resources/accesskeys/19), however, should you use them then
yes, setting the <span> to underline the Accesskey would be a good idea. Be
careful which key you choose, and avoid excessive use of Accesskeys... after
all, most users probably will not be returning to the page on a daily
basis... expecting them to remember more than 2 or 3 Accesskeys is probably
unreasonable.

Good Luck

JF

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Lindop [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 7:54 AM
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: accesskeys - underlining letters
>
>
>
> Apologies if this is a newbie question...
>
> I know there are already quite a few accesskey recommendations
> based around
> different number & letter keyboard combinations.
>
> As the general consensus is that numbers should be used for generic
> shortcuts pages (ie 1=home, 0=accesskeys etc), how about using the letter
> keys, and visually indicating the accesskey by underlining the appropriate
> letter?
>
> So for your homepage link you could use
>
> <a href="home.html" accesskey="h"><span class="un">H</span>ome</a>
>
> [where class 'un' is text-decoration: underline]
>
> For keys already assigned by the browser's menus, use the next available
> letter in the word, eg
>
> <a href="biographies.html" accesskey="i">B<span
> class="un">i</span>ographies</a>
>
> php.net is already using this in a small way with its search accesskey:
>
> <u>s</u>earch
>
> When extended to the navigation bar of a site, this solution seems to
> combine clarity with accessibility.
> It is also a really prominent indication to all that you care about these
> things (you could even have a link called 'why are some letters
> underlined?'
> linking to your 'About this site' page).
>
> The one downside we can think of is that screen readers will trip up over
> the link text because of the span tag ("H - ome") - any suggestions?
>
> Thanks
>
> Matt Lindop
> www.WebProjects.co.uk
>
>
>
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