21 Call for Standards

I do not like the idea of using numbers for Accesskeys (except on smartphones). The reason is that your have a hard time remembering what each number is. It is hard to remember that “4” is e.g. Articles and “5” is Gallery. Also people who use numbers for Accesskeys often use them in the exact same order as you navigation. That presents a potential problem in regards to consistency between sites.

Instead I like (and use) the idea of fixed Accesskey corresponding to what they do. Like:
S – Moves focus to the search field
P – Prints the page (I know that this is also done using CTRL + P, but it would be good practice to implement ALT + P as well – especially when using Accesskey)
H – Brings you to the home of the current site/section
etc.

The good thing about this is that our readers can remember what each key does because the characters correspond to the function.

One thing I think all of us should read is the OS guidelines for keyboard shortcuts. I think it is important that we mimic the behavior found in the OS. Our readers need consistency and dependability – not only from site to site but also from browser to applications to the OS itself.

It is of vital importance from a usability perspective.

posted at 05:00 pm on June 16, 2003 by Thomas Baekdal

22 It works, but only if focus is right

I’ve actually been doing this for a few months (though I used <span> instead of <em>, for a bit more flexibility), and until reading this I had not realized any of the interaction with the standard accelerators.

But in testing my navigation menu, I noticed a behavior not mentioned here. In IE/Win, at least, where an attempted access key gets applied depends on where the mouse focus is. By default, it is on the application menu, and the Alt key activates the IE menus. But click down in the content of the Web page, and the IE access keys stop working, and those in your page will (sometimes) start working.

I have not yet figured out exactly what steps are needed to switch the focus completely with the mouse, but using the tab key seems to do it reliably.

posted at 05:58 pm on June 16, 2003 by Peter K. Sheerin

23 Underlining submit buttons?

Is there any way to underline the accesskey on a submit buttons? The best way I can think of is by emulating a button using a div with border: 2px solid outset. But then it’s excluded from the tab order – etc – etc. Or a blank button with text absolutely positioned over the top.

posted at 06:37 pm on June 16, 2003 by Ben

24 Underlining submit buttons

You can do this:
<button type=“submit” accesskey=“s”>[em]S[/em]earch</button>

and then in your style sheet:

button em{ text-decoration:underline;
}

posted at 07:53 pm on June 16, 2003 by Forrest Jacobs

25 Showing Keys

I use a scheme where the user can show the list of keys by using an accesskey.

go to http://www.radionz.co.nz/digitallife/index.html

with Mozilla and press alt+m.

Still working on getting IE working in the same way though….

posted at 08:17 pm on June 16, 2003 by Richard Hulse

26 using 'title'

Given that the :first doesn’t always work (on the off-chance that you’ve got more than one menu-item that starts with the same letter), and still wanting to keep some separation, I’ve taken to simply adding in what the Accesskey is in the title attribute.
So your link would be like: [url=“blah” accesskey=“h” title=“Link to Blah. Accesskey: h”]blah[/url].

posted at 11:20 pm on June 16, 2003 by Stv.

27 CSS3 | UI | Keyboard

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-ui/#keyboard

I did use accesskey’s for some time, but not anymore since i read the CSS3-spec. I think thats a much nicer solution, cause it’s will be hardware independent.

Together with media-types this will be a powerfull combination to make a document accessible.

Just my thoughts (o and sorry for my English, i’m from holland you see ;)).

posted at 11:36 pm on June 16, 2003 by Anne

28 History of accesskey

Just some historical information.

The article says “So can your site, thanks to the XHTML accesskey attribute.”

But this is not unique for XHTML, the attribute was already available in HTML 4: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#adef-accesskey

Matthias

posted at 12:13 am on June 17, 2003 by Matthias Gutfeldt

29 GetAccesskeys

A while ago I made this javascript function that alert or display accesskeys harvest from a form.
http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl58854/articles/mhagetaccesskeys/accesskeys.html

Maybe someone can use it.

Martin (Denmark)

posted at 01:20 am on June 17, 2003 by Martin Hintzmann Andersen

30 My use of accesskeys

I’ve implemented access keys at my church site:

http://www.billericaybaptistchurch.freeserve.co.uk/

and see also:

http://www.billericaybaptistchurch.freeserve.co.uk/accessibility.html

I haven’t found a problem with “overloading” already-defined shortcuts on IE or Mozilla: it seems that if the web page itself has the focus, the access keys I define get priority.

I’ve also found that using display: none; on an accesskey link prevents it from working, so for keys that don’t have a corresponding visible link, I’ve had to include the light-grey “access bar” in the footer.

Thoughts? Does this work well?

posted at 04:19 am on June 17, 2003 by Mark Tranchant