...so... what are the accesskeys defined to on a site ?
Hi folks,
As the “Beginner” section would imply… I’m brand new to this issue… and am in the process of retro-fitting a small site to be a bit more ‘accessible’.
I have read the ‘accesskey’ debate regarding how effective they are (or not). I would seem that if you chose to implement accesskeys and limited the keys to numerical,… you would limit the conflicts that may occur with other browsers/languages.
That said, I have a question regarding the acceskeys which may have been put into use on a web site. How does a user know what keys are used through out a site… and what values are assigned to them? Is there something like a ‘Table of Contents’ for keys… or do they just have to explore on their own?
Eric
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Quite often the site designer would define their own accesskeys, which means that unless the information is provided elsewhere (such as a list of the keymaps on a 'help' or 'accessibility' page) users just needed to find their way around.
The closest thing to an accesskey 'standard' we have is probably the accesskey mappings used by the UK cabinet office which became widely used across the whole of the UK public sector -
Jack Pickard The Pickards Information Services| Blog | Twit
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Using headings to group content within your pages enables a "Table of Contents" (ToC) to be provided by Assistive Technologies (ATs). It's sometimes called the "Document Outline".
Specifically, the HTML elements from <h1> to <h6> enable this. Your content can use them as shown here:
| Code: |
| <h1>Welcome to our Website</h1>
<p>Blah blah blah...</p> <h2>What we Do</h2> <p>Blah blah blah...</p> <h2>Recent Events</h2> <p>Blah blah blah...</p> <h2>Top Products</h2> <p>Blah blah blah...</p> |
- Welcome to our Website
- What we Do
- Recent Events
- Top Products
- What we Do
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| zippes wrote: |
| I have a question regarding the acceskeys which may have been put into use on a web site. How does a user know what keys are used through out a site… and what values are assigned to them? Is there something like a ‘Table of Contents’ for keys… or do they just have to explore on their own?
|
There are two main users of access keys on a web page -- keyboard-only users, and the visually impaired.
For the keyboard-only users, there is usually a link to a page which contains a list of available access keys.
e.g.
The list may be on an 'accessibility' page, or may be a specific page with the values.
e.g.
For the visually impaired, the assistive technology program that they use will often/usually provide a list of access keys available on a page by pressing a specific key combination.
e.g.
.
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Excellent… very good information… thank you ….
..now another question…
Is there any sort of ‘standard’ being used on a web-site which would ‘flag it’ as being “Accessibility Friendly”? … a statement… a logo… something like that?
Obviously… it won’t take long for the user to make that determination for themselves… but having something visible/searchable would have merit?
Thanks,
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Sometimes the site will have an 'accessibility' statement on the site
e.g.
Sometimes the site will indicate the level of accessibility
e.g.
Sometimes both, of course.
.
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For more info, see Nomensa's advice on creating accessibility statements and the W3C's guidance on using WCAG conformance logos.James Coltham - Local gov web manager by day, web and accessibility blogger at lunchtime, freelancer by night. Tweets at @prettysimple.
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