[Accessibility_sig] question: are there any "safe" access keys?

[Erik Fruin]

Not a bad idea, if it could work.  I doubt all the browser and AT makers
would want to re-work everything at this point.

This issue is well known, and is being looked at in the XHTML 2
specification.  However, there is much criticism about the new way that
access is being thought about by the authors.  Do a Google search to see the
debate.

I side with the group that thinks that the author of a web page should have
a mechanism to specify the sections/functionality in the page or web site
and leave the specific key bindings up to the user.  For example, I could
create a page with 3 links to other pages and 2 functions that the user
might want to perform.  I would specify that these 5 things exist (probably
giving a description of the items) and then the user(s) of the page could
assign their own access keys to them.  Bob might assign ALT + 1, 2 and 3 to
the 3 links and ALT + 4 to the first function, completely ignoring the other
function that doesn't interest him.  Sally might ignore the links, but
assign ALT + Q to the first function and ALT + P to the second function.
This scenario allows the user the freedom to assign keys that do not
conflict with their browser or AT and frees up the author from possible
conflicts.

I'm not sure where this issue currently sits with the W3C authors, but I'm
sure they're listening to everyone's opinions and will come out with a good
specification (someday).


Erik

-----Original Message-----
From: accessibility_sig-bounces at knowbility.org
[mailto:accessibility_sig-bounces at knowbility.org] On Behalf Of Norbert
Bollow
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 3:06 PM
To: accessibility_sig at knowbility.org
Subject: Re: [Accessibility_sig] question: are there any "safe" access keys?

Erik Fruin <efruin at elfcc.com> wrote:

> If you look at that list on the WATS site, you'll see that nearly every
> letter, number and symbol are used by one or more app/AT for some
function.

Maybe there's a need for a RFC or something which explicitly reserves
a reasonable set of access keys for being defined in the HTML?

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                    http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG  http://SIUG.ch

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