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Re: Access Keys

for

From: John Foliot
Date: Mar 27, 2018 1:33PM

Hi Glen,

To be sure, accesskeys can be hugely beneficial, but only in limited
instances. Discoverability (and also related: internationalization), along
with conflict management (what happens if a key stroke combo is 'reserved'
by assistive tech, for example), remain problematic.

In an 'intranet' solution, I'd be all over accesskeys for common commands
or activities, but for most general purpose sites, I'd recommend not
bothering, in part because there is no standardization of what key stroke
would map to what function (both a benefit and a curse). Looking at your
"Search" example and internationalization issues, what would you map the
accesskey to? "S" for Search? "C" for Chercher (French)? "B" for Buscar
(Spanish)?

Note as well that the new SC in WCAG 2.1 (Draft) emerged with a requirement
("A mechanism is available to remap the shortcut to use one or more
non-printable keyboard characters" - one of 3 possible solutions.
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#character-key-shortcuts) that suggest a
multi-character string (The Understanding document will reference
voice-activated "shortcuts" that require more than a single key), so it's a
bit of a quicksand situation today.

Personally, I would proceed with extreme caution.

JF

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 2:03 PM, glen walker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi John. Regarding your last statement, does that mean if a page *does*
> have a high-frequency visit rate, then it *is* worth it to have accesskeys?
>
> Speaking as a keyboard user, I'd say yes, because it makes my life easier,
> but I'd only want accesskeys on things that are commonly used on that
> page. I don't expect every button or link to have one. Just 1 or 2 or
> maybe 3 elements on the page.
>
> Not to digress too far into another subject, but a page like amazon.com,
> the first thing I always do there is search for something, yet the initial
> focus is not on the search field. Same with imdb.com. Whereas
> craigslist.org and wikipedia.org both put the focus in the search field
> (which is not the first focusable object on the page). If a site chooses
> not to put the initial focus on a commonly used element, it would be really
> nice if there was an accesskey so I could quickly put my focus there.
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 7:15 AM, John Foliot < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Bottom line: they are not required, they can be problematic, and unless
> the
> > site/page has a high-frequency repeat-visit rate, not worth the effort.
> >
> > JF
> >
> >
> > > > >



--
John Foliot
Principal Accessibility Strategist
Deque Systems Inc.
<EMAIL REMOVED>

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion