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Thread: Access keys

Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)

From: tedd
Date: Sun, Jun 24 2007 6:50AM
Subject: Access keys
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Hi peoples:

The book DOM Scripting (page 171) states that access-key navigation
links typically have standard settings, such as, 1 = home, 2 = skip
navigation, 9 = contact information, 0 = accessibility statement and
cited this link:

http://clagnut.com/blog/193

Considering that this post is four years old, is there something more
recent that solved the skip navigation issue presented, namely is
skip navigation "2 "or "s"?

Thanks,

Cheers,

tedd
--
-------
http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Sun, Jun 24 2007 4:20PM
Subject: Re: Access keys
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tedd wrote:
> Hi peoples:
>
> The book DOM Scripting (page 171) states that access-key navigation
> links typically have standard settings, such as, 1 = home, 2 = skip
> navigation, 9 = contact information, 0 = accessibility statement and
> cited this link:
>
> http://clagnut.com/blog/193
>
> Considering that this post is four years old, is there something more
> recent that solved the skip navigation issue presented, namely is
> skip navigation "2 "or "s"?
>

The age of the posting (as well as the book) is critical. Please see the
following:

Using Accesskeys - Is it worth it? -
http://www.wats.ca/show.php?contentid=32
Accesskeys and Reserved Keystroke Combinations -
http://www.wats.ca/show.php?contentid=43

... And as well:
Access + Key Still Equals Accesskey -
http://www.wats.ca/show.php?contentid=47

If you really must include accesskeys on your site, a number of
user-controllable solutions have emerged, my favorite being the one
developed by Gez Lemon: User-Defined Access Keys -
http://juicystudio.com/article/user-defined-accesskeys.php (Note: there are
others out there)

Cheers!

JF

From: tedd
Date: Sun, Jun 24 2007 5:10PM
Subject: Re: Access keys
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From: Rich Pedley
Date: Mon, Jun 25 2007 2:50AM
Subject: Re: Access keys
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On 25/06/2007 00:06, tedd wrote:
> At 3:14 PM -0700 6/24/07, John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility
> Program wrote:
>> If you really must include accesskeys on your site, a number of
>> user-controllable solutions have emerged, my favorite being the one
>> developed by Gez Lemon: User-Defined Access Keys -
> http://juicystudio.com/article/user-defined-accesskeys.php

> Thanks for the links, all good reads. And, I'm not required to do
> anything regarding links -- I'm just looking to make the "right"
> choice.

To me the right choice is either to not include them, or allow
functionality to allow the user to set their own.

> While the last link is interesting, it seems a bit on an overkill for
> accessibility -- how many users are going to take the time to set-up
> access keys for a single site?

probably more than you think - but only for sites they wish to
revisit. That way they can set the same access key on different sites
and not be forced to try and figure out what key does what on what site.

Until access keys become settable by the user they are effectively
useless, how many different sites do you visit? Could you remember x
number of different access key sets? I can't even remember keyboard
access for the programs I use day to day, let alone websites I visit.
You may say that this is a case for standardising access keys, that
may be so, but unless everyone can agree to use the same set, it
becomes just as unusable.

> Too bad an universal cookie could not be set-up to carry the user's
> defaults across different web sites that are compliant to the
> technique. Something like a client-side sniffer that would detect if
> the technique was present on the newly accessed site and then
> initialize a procedure to provide cookie data to it.
>
> Food for thought.

Sorry but I wouldn't want that to be made available, being able to
read cross site cookies is surely a huge security issue.

Rich

From: Moore, Michael
Date: Mon, Jun 25 2007 7:30AM
Subject: Re: Access keys
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At 3:14 PM -0700 6/24/07, John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility
Program wrote:
>If you really must include accesskeys on your site, a number of
>user-controllable solutions have emerged, my favorite being the one
>developed by Gez Lemon: User-Defined Access Keys -
http://juicystudio.com/article/user-defined-accesskeys.php

Tedd's Reply:

While the last link is interesting (Gez Lemon), it seems a bit on an
overkill for accessibility -- how many users are going to take the time
to set-up access keys for a single site?

Mike's Opinion:

Access keys can be very beneficial to people with physical disabilities
and to improving efficiency in web applications that are used regularly.
Although in general, I feel that access keys are evil, I have seen their
usefulness in specific situations where users work with an application
regularly. Perhaps in those rare situations a set of quote "default"
access keys with a very simple method to allow the user to either
disable the access keys or to reconfigure the keys to work better for
their personal use would be the best compromise. In the case of a web
app that is used regularly the time taken to set up the access keys
would be worthwhile.

Tedd:

Too bad an universal cookie could not be set-up to carry the user's
defaults across different web sites that are compliant to the technique.
Something like a client-side sniffer that would detect if the technique
was present on the newly accessed site and then initialize a procedure
to provide cookie data to it.

Mike's Opinion:

Considering that the majority of sites being constructed don't even
comply with the most basic elements of web standards, (proper use of
headings for example) I don't think we would ever see standard use of
access keys and cookies to control them. Not to mention the debate over
what that may be. However, using a cookie, and a standard method of
implementing access keys across an intranet, including related web
applications, could be achievable over time and would be worth looking
into.

Michael Moore
Accessibility Specialist
Texas Department of Assistive
and Rehabilitative Services

"If you don't have time to do it right,
when will you have time to fix it?"

From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Mon, Jun 25 2007 8:30AM
Subject: Re: Access keys
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I would think the value in users being able to setup their own access
keys is they can reassign them from whatever you designed. Thus they
could remap them from keys they are using for other purposes.

As for your approach for universal cookies, you might also be interested
in related work of the Web-4-All project
(http://web4all.atrc.utoronto.ca/html/english/w4a_home_e.html).

Regards,

Norman B. Robinson
Section 508 Coordinator
IT Governance, US Postal Service
phone: 202.268.8246