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RE: Help with adding ACCESSKEY statements?

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Feb 20, 2004 8:11AM

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Keith Patton wrote:

> I would take issue a little with advice never to use access keys

I didn't say "never". Just "don't". And I referred to special cases where
they might make sense. Between consenting adults, so to say.

> (although i admit conflicts are possible)

On the Web, accesskey attributes are guaranteed to conflict
with user agent functions, which can be far more important than
any site-specific or page-specific idea about shortcuts.

> as long as a standard is developed and followed,

There's no sign of any standard being developed, unless you count local
rules as standards.

> this should minimise conflict with screen reader access.

With _all_ screen readers? Are you sure? So what about the billions of
users who use other user agents? Many of us _need_ browser shortcuts.
Many of us just _like_ them very much.

> Also, make sure the link to information on accessing your site (which would
> include information on tab indexes and any access keys in use) is made
> prominent on the site near the top, and also provide tab indexing on the
> links using the tabindex attribute to allow keyboard users to easily get to
> the link if it is not near the top of the page in terms of number of tabs.

That would be distracting to the vast majority of users, who are just
interested in getting to the content, not technical (and so often
_too technical_) instructions on accessing something. Make the content
reachable in as normal ways as possible, instead of telling users what
interface they should try to adapt themselves on _this_ page or site.

And tabindex attribute is mostly just confusing too. When I tab around a
page, I don't like to see myself jumping from one place to another in
unnatural ways. Just design the page so that the default tab order is
suitable.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/


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