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Re: Stats on keyboard-only users

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: May 25, 2018 9:49AM

> If so, is it possible to get a number associated with "lack of keyboard accessibility" from the section at the above link?

475 (25%) of respondents listed lack of keyboard accessibility as one
of their top three problematic items on the web. Of course this is at
best 25% of screen reader users, so not a highly informative number.

The survey results also indicate that 41.4% of respondents always,
often, or sometimes use a keyboard on mobile -
https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/#mobilekeyboard

33.3% of respondents in our Survey of Users with Motor Disabilities
reported using the keyboard (or keyboard-like devices) as their
primary means of navigation -
https://webaim.org/projects/motordisabilitysurvey/#means

I think you'll have great difficulty finding definitive numbers for
"what percentage of people rely on the keyboard for navigation". A
better question would be to ask "what percentage of people USE the
keyboard for navigation". Many people use the keyboard for efficiency
or preference, even though they may not have to due to a disability.

Because keyboard accessibility is among the most basic of
accessibility techniques to get right (in fact, it works by default -
you have to do something to break it), I'd hope there would be
discomfort in the suggestion that keyboard accessibility could be
summarily ignored if the percent of users that rely on it is small
enough. Using that argument, one simply needs to set the threshold a
bit higher and higher until people with disabilities are no longer a
concern at all.

Thanks,

Jared