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Re: Instructions for Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

for

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Jan 14, 2020 5:15AM

Maybe there is a non-WCAG way to look at this issue.

There is a user interface rule that is rarely stated, but frequently
enforce. Unusable functionality is the same as absent functionality.

Can anyone think of a situation where a project team has implemented
required functionality in a manner that is unusable where the site owners or
business partners, who paid for the work, considered the requirement
successfully met? It is one of the reasons teams will run function tests so
they can avoid implementing an unusable feature.

I am trying to think of a good non-accessibility related example, but I
can't. That is because doing something like this would be unthinkable.

Perhaps the way to convince the developer is to explain there is one key
difference between unusable functionality and absent fucntionality.
Unusable fuctionality costs a lot more to do. If you have spent the effort
to take it this far, why not do just a little more work to ensure the
functionality is usable.

Thanks,
Tim
Tim Harshbarger
Senior Accessibility Consultant
Deque Systems
-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Guy
Hickling
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2020 5:47 PM
To: webaim-forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Instructions for Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

> in my opinion, 2.1.1 is a fail if your custom keyboard shortcuts are not
discoverable by the user (because in that case the user can't operate the
page using the keyboard)

Birkir, I suppose I have never thought my way through this reasoning quite
as rigourously as you have. But I agree with your logic, and I have also
actually followed it in testing many times. When I'm testing some custom
component that someone's invented, I try the obvious keys (usually Enter and
spacebar). I then try the arrow keys, just in case. After that I don't try
anymore on the basis that, although the designers maybe have provided some
weird key combination to operate it, I don't want to find it. So far as I'm
concerned, if they haven't provided one of the obvious, commonly used
keypresses to do it, then it's a 2.1.1 fail and I don't want to be stopped
from reporting it as such just because I happen to stumble a solution that
no ordinary user is likely to think of.
If one day a client does push back saying "If you press CTRL Shift XYZ then
turn three somersaults it will work" I will simply reply saying I couldn't
find it and refer them to 3.3.2!
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