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Discussion on: Accessibility For Beginners with HTML and CSS

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scottharrisondev profile image
Scott Harrison

I've never seen the accesskey attribute before, quite cool! How would you communicate to the user what accesskeys do what though?

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lexlohr profile image
Alex Lohr

aria-describedby on the body, linking to a (hidden until activated by non-visually-impaired user) list of keyboard shortcuts. Caveat: different browsers / OS will need different keys (see developer.mozilla.org/de/docs/Web/...), so either create the list with JS or prefix it with a short description.

You could also use [ALT]-[key] as a default and distinguish the browsers on Windows with different behavior ([ALT]-[SHIFT]-[key] on Firefox, [Shift]-[ESC] + [key] on Opera <= 12, or ignore this one as it is basically not used anymore nowadays) using CSS hacks and add a note about [CTRL]-[ALT]-[key] on Mac (and ignore Firefox prior to version 14, which used [CTRL]-[key] instead).

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scottharrisondev profile image
Scott Harrison

Wow that's really cool so it's like a key/legend that only visually impaired people will see

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lexlohr profile image
Alex Lohr

You can also let power-users "see" it when they activate it in a submenu. Accessibility is for everyone.

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scottharrisondev profile image
Scott Harrison

Yeah for web apps that would be ideal, no harm in displaying shortcuts for everyone. I'm sure Atlassian do this for a few of their tools.

One thing I do wonder though is how it would differ from just making sure your website is accessible via tabbing? or is it just a shortcut to stuff so you don't have to tab through the whole site to find what you are looking for

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lexlohr profile image
Alex Lohr

Yes, it is a shortcut to empower users who rely on keyboard only to use your application faster. That's accessibility: empowering users.