Re: FN-FORUM: accessibility issues... (accesskey mainly)

date posted 6th August 2004 17:24

At 15:54 on Friday, 06 Aug 2004, Luke Perman wrote:

>
> hi all,
>
> wondered if anyone here can give me a few accessibility tips...
>
> i'm currently building templates for this site:
>
> www.evoke-media.com/sites/had/index.html
>
> it will be powered by a CMS (textpattern probably -
> http://www.textpattern.com/), but i'm just doing the template work for
> now.
>
>
> the issue is the news links. according to cynthia
> (http://www.contentquality.com/) i need to use accesskey for every link
> on the page - which is fine for navigation buttons etc. - but what do
> you do when you have a list of links like this? i can see me running
> out of keys on the keyboard very quickly! especially with the full news
> page that will have between 10 - 20 stories on it!

you really shouldn't use access keys for anything other than the basic
common navigation.

you *should* try and match your keys to some standards.

they are almost harmful if used to excess.

some debate:
http://www.clagnut.com/blog/204/

the ones you might use:

"Listed below is the recommended UK Government accesskeys standard:

S - Skip navigation
1 - Home page
2 - What's new
3 - Site map
4 - Search
5 - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
6 - Help
7 - Complaints procedure
8 - Terms and conditions
9 - Feedback form
0 - Access key details

When this navigational system is made available, it is important to inform
your website users, as soon as they enter. Otherwise, users who are least
able to do so will be faced with a mouse-dependent navigational system
that could have been bypassed. Each page could display a message, e.g.
‘UK government accesskeys system’ "

;o)