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Benefits of Using Access Keys in HTML?
kandresen asks: "I have been considering the use of access keys in my web site as an accessibility feature, and was originally looking at possible side effects this could have for people with PCs and Macs, however in my search I found the problem was far wider than just that, as people with different language version of these OS'es may have different key bindings. Many of the websites I deal with have an International reach, so I can see this may limit the available keys quite a bit. The better approach, which would avoid the entire problem, unfortunately does not seem to be a reality, even in the upcoming version of XHTML 2. So, I wonder whether other webmasters have had many complaints from their users regarding the use of access keys interfering with system specific shortcuts, such as bookmarking, help functions, accessing of favorites, and so forth. Do you have any tips as for how to avoid negative side effects? Are there some keys that do not cause much problems regardless of language, OS, or the client being used? Is there a way to use Javascript to take care of such problems?"
Sounds like a good idea, and as a keyboard cowboy I appreciate it, but the first time I tried to leave a webpage by hitting alt+d to go to the address bar to type a url and got a donation page I was instantly turned off by the idea. While you can do it right, its rarely worth the effort unless you're doing a full out web app, and even then keep it optional.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
The way I see it, those that want to browse with keyboard shortcuts already have them. As an avid user of the Mozilla typeaheadfind I have usable shortcut keys that are standardized from page to page. All I do is type the text of what I want. Why would I want to learn a new way that will only only work on your page?
So essentially, the users that want this added efficiency already have it, in lynx/firefox/browser of choice, and those that don't probably wouldn't bother to learn the page specific keys anyway.
Or am I missing a category of people?
Keep in mind that nobody wants to learn new shortcuts for every website. Some users might not be able to navigate a page if their navigation keys are reprogrammed. If you want to make your pages more accessible then make sure that your pages use "strict" xhtml and css. Then visitors who need additional accessibility don't run into problems with their browser-modifications.
Obscure keyboard shortcuts are convenient for blog/cms-administrators. And administrators can tweak the shortcuts if they don't like them. Regular users don't have this option, so they might be annoyed.
If you use Mozilla, it's called type-ahead-find.
Check it out, with it you can easily browse the net sans mouse.
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