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RE: web access keys

for

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Aug 16, 2005 6:00AM

Jan Eric Hellbusch wrote:
> The discussion on whether accesskeys are useful or not can also be
> found on
>
> http://2bweb.de/accesskey
>
> BUT: another German language document :-)
>
> The main use of accesskey in the Accesskey-Pad is to replace the
> missing LINK functionality in MSIE. Otherwise I do agree, accesskey
> is not the best to use on a Web site.

Jan,

Nobody argues with the idea behind accesskey, and it's usefulness. But
given the sad state of affairs, and the potential for confusion and/or
conflict with various adaptive technologies, why bother. Even the W3C
has given up on them - accesskeys is slated to be deprecated in XHTML 2,
in favor or the new <access> element and role attribute.
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-xhtml2-20050527/mod-role.html#s_rolemodule
)

So... Based on the existing issues, and looking forward to the future, I
still advocate that developers should stop using accesskeys altogether.

Cheers!

JF
--
John Foliot <EMAIL REMOVED>
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca
Phone: 1-613-482-7053