Access keys

[francis]

Part of the HTML specification consists of access keys (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.11.2) - a method of generating keyboard shortcuts that allow the user to jump to various parts of a document or even different sections of a site. For example, you could code an access key so that when the user pressed Alt and 1, it takes the user to the site map. Accesskeys are also part of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-keyboard-shortcuts), but the general concensus of those involved with accessibility is "good idea, shame about the lack of thought involved".

Once all combinations of operating systems and browser types are taken into consideration, there are only three keys left to use (http://wats.ca/resources/accesskeys/19) - all the others will potentially conflict with the user's computer. Further investigation (http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=615&highlight=accesskeys) shows that once non-English languages are considered, there are no keys left at all.

So - do you use access keys on your site? If so you could actually be making your site less accessible than it was when you started.

<comment type="homer" direction="w3c">D'oh!</comment>

[David]

I have used access keys on the CADTutor (http://www.cadtutor.net) website. From memory, at the time I coded them (two and a half years ago), they were an IE only thing. You can see the keys on the pull-down menus e.g. Alt+A takes you to the AutoCAD tutorial page regardless of where you are in the site. The main problem and most confusing aspect of access keys in IE is that they don't work the same way as in the OS. Each access key combination requires <ENTER> to activate. However, in Mozilla they work perfectly. OK, I admit it, Mozilla has a better access key implementation than IE :P

They are very easy to code. The example above just looks like this...

[/url]

...and is added to each page of the site.

Francis's words of caution are worth considering.

Here's some more [url=http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html]useful information (../acad/index.html) on the use and implementation of access keys.