[Athen] Worpress/accessibility question

[Rangin, Hadi Bargi]

Hi Wink,

I responded to this topic earlier at one of our local mailing list. See below and hope it helps.

There are a few fact that we need to know about access keys:
1. Access keys are useful as long as there are only a limited numbers of them and are used consistently across the domain.
2. Access keys frequently overlap with OS, browser, and assistive technology shortcut keys. As long as the end-user can specify the access keys to desired functions in an application, then it makes sense but according to the article

"One of these Omeka plugins, called Access Keys, allows site administrators to specify
access keys
 (or keyboard shortcuts) for navigating around Omeka. People who are blind do not navigate Web sites through a graphical user interface; they usually rely
exclusively on their keyboard. Access keys are time-saving shortcuts that allow them to navigate quickly and easily. For instance, an administrator could
specify that the access key "s" would be reserved for loading the "Search" page, the "h" key could be reserved for the "Home" page, the "a" key for the
"About" page, and so on."

the administrator assigns the access keys. And this is the problem. how the admin knows what access keys doesn't interfere with my OS/browser/assistive technology shortcut keys.
This is similar to that an admin choose the best color setting for the users. I believe we all do have our color preferences and administrators should not impose their color preferences to the end users.
The optimal option is to provide the mechanism that end-user specifies his/her access keys within a domain depending on his/her OS/browser/AT settings.

I personally think access keys cause more problems for AT users than helping them. We really don't need to invest too much energy into access keys solution. An application with logical heading structures/landmarks doesn't need access keys very much. They are helpful if we are dealing with pages/forms that we access repetitively.

Thanks,
Hadi


________________________________
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On Behalf Of Wink Harner
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 12:29 PM
To: DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network'
Subject: [Athen] Worpress/accessibility question

Hi all,

Forgive cross-posting.

Received this from a colleague today and am curious as to your collective (wise!) thoughts about Wordpress and accessibility for Blind users.

Here is the link to the higher ed article about a plugin for wordpress to help blind people.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/access-keys-a-wordpress-plugin-to-improve-accessibility/32181?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Your input, as always, is welcome.

Wink

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