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Re: Access Keys

for

From: glen walker
Date: Mar 27, 2018 5:54PM

The i18n aspect doesn't bother me. If I frequented another country's site,
it wouldn't bother me if search was some letter I don't associate with
searching. It would just be a learning curve and then eventually, I would
associate that letter with searching (muscle memory) on their site.

But it sounds like in general we agree.



On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 1:33 PM, John Foliot < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> 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
> > > > >