Gabriel Wicke wrote:
On Wed, 2004-06-09 at 12:14 -0700, Brion Vibber
wrote:
You can change them in JavaScript *after*
they're set to defaults in the
HTML. Shall we change all the "http://foo" URLs to
"javascript:document.location='http://foo'"? After all, accessibility
only means blind people using JavaScript, right! Sigh........
Not quite the same thing, is it? An access key that's completely
unintuitive can be as inaccessible as one that collides with another one
set by the browser/os
I don't think we're communicating here. :)
An access key that you don't know about will just not do anything until
you know it's there. Once you know about it, it's a helpful addition.
An access key that conflicts with preexisting keyboard shortcuts *that
one is already using* is a big big problem: it actively interferes with
the user's ability to work with the application.
This is why the conflicting defaults must be changed; they are very
damaging to usability. If you don't do it, I will.
or one that has a misleading 'alt-x' label
instead
of a the proper 'shift-esc-x' for the opera browser somebody's using.
Which are the users that will have a problem with this setup?
The labels are a separate issue from the existence of the access keys.
Misleading labels are quite obviously bad, and it's better that the
labels be set *correctly* via JavaScript instead of using hardcoded
*incorrect* labels.
Having *no labels* (but the access keys being listed prominently in the
editing help and the site's accessibility statement) would also be
acceptable. This would be the natural state with JavaScript disabled if
the accesskeys were being set in the HTML (as they were until recently).
I added all those access keys and tooltips in 1.3, and
only in the
PHPTal skin. The 'standard', 'nostalgia' and 'cologneblue' skins
don't
have these access keys at all, i'd say practically no access keys are a
bigger problem than user-configurable ones set from js with helpful
labels.
Do you then agree that the access keys should work even if JavaScript is
disabled or unavailable?
Accessibility isn't just about adding alt tags for the blind; it's about
not unnecessarily cutting people off from or complicating their usage of
your site. Anyone who hasn't already, I highly recommend reading Mark
Pilgrim's 'Dive Into Accessibility':
http://diveintoaccessibility.org/
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)