[Athen] Access Keys

[Saroj Primlani]

Very well said Hadi.  I have never assigned them as I find it to be
more of a challenge.  If I am sighted and have physical limitations,
having the ability to set key combinations or macros is very
beneficial. However most sighted users have never used an added
"technology" to navigate and select actionable items and it is a
difficult concept for them to internalize that the key combinations
would "trip" on each other.  They do not generally use key
combinations for navigation and shortcuts and when they think about
it, it seems like a good idea. The focus of all design should be that
every actionable item must be available from the keyboard and all key
combinations/ short cut keys/ "access" keys should be a user
preference.
Saroj

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 3:00 PM,  <athen-request at athenpro.org> wrote:

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>   1. Re: Worpress/accessibility question (Rangin, Hadi Bargi)

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> Message: 1

> Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:19:38 -0500

> From: "Rangin, Hadi Bargi" <hadi at illinois.edu>

> To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen at athenpro.org>,

>        "DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU" <DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU>

> Subject: Re: [Athen] Worpress/accessibility question

> Message-ID:

>        <E64D96424F4E554C841B19F26A9E288E048C6058AE at DSMAILBOX2.ad.uiuc.edu>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>

> 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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-- 
Saroj