Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Brandon]

hi,

I'm the one who was quoted in the original post on this subject.

I know that there are some problems with accesskeys clashing with other command 
keys, but I truly think it'd be a shame to drop them just because of this 
clash, or just because they aren't used much. It really does make things much 
easier for navigating around a web page when accesskeys are implemented.

Thanks,
Brandon
- Original Message - 
From: "Michel Fortin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "whatwg List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: [whatwg] On accessibility


Le 14 juin 2006 à 21:09, Lachlan Hunt a écrit :

> If implementations can be modified so that accesskeys do not  
> interfere with existing shortcut keys, then that's great.   Perhaps  
> they could offer a kind of web-apps mode where all Alt+[key]  
> combinations are safe to be used by the web page, and then another  
> mode where they retain their normal browser functions.  But until  
> something like that happens and proves successful, accesskeys  
> should not be retained.

I'd like to point out that accesskeys are working very well on the  
Mac. Application commands are issued using the Command key and most  
browsers bind accesskeys to the minimally-used Control key.  
Accesskeys do not conflict with other system and application  
shortcuts unless the user defines his own conflicting shortcuts in  
the system preferences.

It would be sad to see accesskeys disappear just because they are  
hard to implement elsewhere. But I acknowledge most other computers  
don't have a "spare" key which can be used for that.


Michel Fortin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.michelf.com/

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Michel Fortin]

Le 14 juin 2006 à 21:09, Lachlan Hunt a écrit :

If implementations can be modified so that accesskeys do not  
interfere with existing shortcut keys, then that's great.   Perhaps  
they could offer a kind of web-apps mode where all Alt+[key]  
combinations are safe to be used by the web page, and then another  
mode where they retain their normal browser functions.  But until  
something like that happens and proves successful, accesskeys  
should not be retained.


I'd like to point out that accesskeys are working very well on the  
Mac. Application commands are issued using the Command key and most  
browsers bind accesskeys to the minimally-used Control key.  
Accesskeys do not conflict with other system and application  
shortcuts unless the user defines his own conflicting shortcuts in  
the system preferences.


It would be sad to see accesskeys disappear just because they are  
hard to implement elsewhere. But I acknowledge most other computers  
don't have a "spare" key which can be used for that.



Michel Fortin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.michelf.com/

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Sander Tekelenburg]

At 10:29 +0700 UTC, on 2006-06-15, Alexey Feldgendler wrote:

[...]

> Here is what I think should be standardized: a user agent which supports
>accesskeys MUST provide an uniform method of invoking any accesskey which is
>a letter or a digit. This method should be designed so that the UA's own key
>bindings never conflict with the accesskeys.

FWIW, IMO this is not the terrain of a HTML spec. That aside, it seems to me
that a browser that allows such keyboard-shortcut conflicts to occur is so
obviously broken that I don't even understand why it needs to be discussed at
all, let alone /here/.

*If* you want to go there, the effort should be much broader: you should then
also state that browsers must by default indicate the existence of a TITLE
attribute; that browsers must indicate when their ESP engine has kicked in so
the user knows that what is rendered is at best an educated guess; etc.

It might very well be useful to have such a spec -- something along the lines
of the GNKSA[*]. It might certainly be helpful to users to have a comparison
chart available, maybe with a scoring per browser or even some sort of
certification. But I don't see why such requirements should be spelled out in
a HTML spec.


[*] 


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg, 

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Alexey Feldgendler]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:29:35 +0700, Henri Sivonen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> Here is what I think should be standardized: a user agent which
>> supports accesskeys MUST provide an uniform method of invoking any
>> accesskey which is a letter or a digit.

> Do you mean 0-9 and a-z or any Unicode digit or letter?

This is details which, of course, should be discussed.

I think that requiring availability of 0-9 and A-Z is all that we can ask a 
compliant UA of. Because not every environment is capable of input in every 
language, we can't require that of an UA.


-- 
Alexey Feldgendler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[ICQ: 115226275] http://feldgendler.livejournal.com

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Henri Sivonen]

On Jun 15, 2006, at 06:29, Alexey Feldgendler wrote:

Here is what I think should be standardized: a user agent which  
supports accesskeys MUST provide an uniform method of invoking any  
accesskey which is a letter or a digit.


Do you mean 0-9 and a-z or any Unicode digit or letter?

--
Henri Sivonen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Alexey Feldgendler]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:42:41 +0700, Matthew Paul Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:

>> What Opera does makes sense. Maybe it should be standardized.

> What Opera does is indeed very cool, but it's quite possible that
> another browser could come up with something even cooler. And in this
> area there is very little benefit from interoperability, so I don't see
> any point in standardizing it. It would be like standardizing on vi.
> (Or emacs.)

Sorry, I havent made myself clear enough.

Here is what I think should be standardized: a user agent which supports 
accesskeys MUST provide an uniform method of invoking any accesskey which is a 
letter or a digit. This method should be designed so that the UA's own key 
bindings never conflict with the accesskeys.


-- 
Alexey Feldgendler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[ICQ: 115226275] http://feldgendler.livejournal.com

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Lachlan Hunt]

Alexey Feldgendler wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:09:43 +0700, Lachlan Hunt 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Accesskey implementations need to be seriously improved if they are to 
be retained.  There's significant evidence to show that there are very 
few, if any, safe keys available which don't clash with existing 
shortcut keys in browsers.


What Opera does makes sense. Maybe it should be standardized.


The exact user interface shouldn't be standardised, browsers should be 
free to implement whatever system benefits their users.  But a note in 
the spec that strongly suggests implementations choose a method that 
avoids key conflicts with other browser and system shortcut keys.


In any case, has there been any research done on the use of access keys 
in websites?  Are there any common use cases they're used to fulfill? 
For example, Dive Into Accessibility recommends using digits only and 
suggests the following:


Access key 1
Home page
Access key 2
Skip to main content (the navigation bar skip link)
Access key 9
Feedback

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_15_defining_keyboard_shortcuts.html

A few others are also listed by Jukka
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html

Home page can be semantically identified using rel="home".  Main content 
can be differentiated from the navigation, headers, footers, etc. 
because of the new ,  and  elements.  Feedback 
could be identified using a link with rel="contact" or something like that.


If those, and other use cases, were semantically identified, then UAs 
could implement their own keyboard shortcuts that would work the same 
across many websites.  It also solves the device independence and i18n 
problems with accesskeys because different systems could use whatever 
input device they like and/or whatever key combination they like and the 
user would be guarenteed they they always perform the same function, no 
matter what site they're viewing.


--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On Jun 14, 2006, at 9:47 PM, Alexey Feldgendler wrote:


On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:09:43 +0700, Lachlan Hunt 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Accesskey implementations need to be seriously improved if they are 
to be retained.  There's significant evidence to show that there are 
very few, if any, safe keys available which don't clash with existing 
shortcut keys in browsers.


What Opera does makes sense. Maybe it should be standardized.
...


What Opera does is indeed very cool, but it's quite possible that 
another browser could come up with something even cooler. And in this 
area there is very little benefit from interoperability, so I don't see 
any point in standardizing it. It would be like standardizing on vi. 
(Or emacs.)


(There is actually *harm* from interoperability for accesskey=, from 
Web authors cluttering pages with instructions on how to use access 
keys because they're so non-obvious -- instructions that may be 
incorrect for some platforms, depending on how they're worded, and that 
are irrelevant for non-interactive UAs like Google.)


--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Alexey Feldgendler]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:09:43 +0700, Lachlan Hunt  
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Accesskey implementations need to be seriously improved if they are to  
be retained.  There's significant evidence to show that there are very  
few, if any, safe keys available which don't clash with existing  
shortcut keys in browsers.


What Opera does makes sense. Maybe it should be standardized.


--
Alexey Feldgendler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[ICQ: 115226275] http://feldgendler.livejournal.com

Re: [whatwg] On accessibility

[Lachlan Hunt]

Simon Pieters wrote:
I've spoken to a person who is blind about HTML5 and accessibility. I 
thought I'd send some of his thoughts to the list.

...
He also says that he accesskeys shouldn't be dropped.


Accesskey implementations need to be seriously improved if they are to 
be retained.  There's significant evidence to show that there are very 
few, if any, safe keys available which don't clash with existing 
shortcut keys in browsers.


http://www.wats.ca/show.php?contentid=43

If implementations can be modified so that accesskeys do not interfere 
with existing shortcut keys, then that's great.   Perhaps they could 
offer a kind of web-apps mode where all Alt+[key] combinations are safe 
to be used by the web page, and then another mode where they retain 
their normal browser functions.  But until something like that happens 
and proves successful, accesskeys should not be retained.


--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/

[whatwg] On accessibility

[Simon Pieters]

Hi,

I've spoken to a person who is blind about HTML5 and accessibility. I 
thought I'd send some of his thoughts to the list.


He is in favor of the new  and  elements indicating the 
navigation section of the page and what is the main content:



yeah that'd be excellent, if screen readers would pick up on this
somehow. because really my main goal when I get to the front page
of a web site, if I've not been there before, is to get to the main
content and see what that site's about, what's on that site, etc.
My second goal is then to get to the navigation to find a section I'd
like to navigate to.


He says that HTML5 shouldn't drop the longdesc attribute, because it is 
useful for people using screen readers.



longdesc is a long description, which is what you're wanting to give.
alt is alternative text, which is just to give me a basic idea of what's
there. i don't want to read a big paragraph for an image unless I
really wan to know what's there.


He also says that he accesskeys shouldn't be dropped.


I love accesskeys, despite anything bad people have said about them,
they're great. very convenient. if I notice an accesskey on a site I visit
often, I make use of it.

I would disagree with [HTML5 dropping accesskeys] more than
longdesc. accesskeys, are really useful, and again I tend to use them
whenever I come across them. it's a shortcut to get to where you
want to go, instead of having to search for it.


Regards,
Simon Pieters