WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

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