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Re: Accesskeys (again??) (was RE: Physically Challenged Web Page Access)

for

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: May 4, 2005 3:08PM

Christian Heilmann wrote:

>>
>> Err.... accesskey is a valid attribute in the [Current - JF] standard, and

the only

>> problem with it is that UAs have their own keyboard shortcuts which
>> make it quite a task to find ones that make sense. Therefore
>> developers following a standard do nothing wrong, the real world
>> implementation is where it fails.


Here we agree. The problem is, as you have stated, finding viable
accesskeys which do not impede or conflict with previously used keystroke
combos. One of my credos is "do no harm", and as such, since there is no
consensus on fixed accesskeys, more sites don't have them than do, etc.
etc., I simply do not use them.

The hypothetical users who might benefit from accesskeys sadly have found
alternative methods of navigating their sites, as the expectation that
accesskeys exist is non-existent; most mainstream sites simply do not bother
anyway, so the end users don't bother looking for them - never mind learn
the particular sites flavor of usage, etc. when they do exist.


>> That leaves us with the question who is wrong? The standard body,
>> assuming that UAs won't need all keyboard shortcuts or the UA
>> developers, implementing them?
>> I'd say both, as the accesskey attribute should have gotten a range of
>> valid values which would have been illegal for the UAs to use.


Again, I don't disagree, and apparently neither does the W3C, who appear to
be quietly deprecating ACCESSKEY in favor of ACCESS in XHTML 2, and a scheme
where-by the ACCESS attribute has a series of pre-defined values, but leaves
the mapping mechanism to the end user/user agent
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-xhtml2-20040722/). This makes infinitely more
sense, as the end user will always know that Ctrl+<foo> will take them to
the Search, or Nav, or Help, or what-have-you. (More details in our article
- The Future of Accesskeys -
http://wats.ca/articles/thefutureofaccesskeys/66)

JF
--
John Foliot <EMAIL REMOVED>
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca
Phone: 1-613-267-1983 / 1-866-932-4878 (North America)