VII. A Few Questions
7.2. Accesskeys
Accesskeys are shortcuts added to a website via the accesskey attribute, these accesskeys can be used to reach a precise part of a webpage or form, or to go to another page. To activate the accesskey, the users has to press a combination of key from his or her keyboard, this combination varies on the type of operating system used or the type of device (for laptops especially, the combination may be different because of the arrangement of characters on the keyboard). The principle of accesskeys is very interesting and could be very useful to many users, especially those who are not able, or do not want, to use a mouse. However, there are two accessibility problem caused by the use of accesskeys.
The first one being that, in the absence of a standard for their use, it is up to the developer’s imagination to allocate a key to an action; it is then to the user to learn each of the accesskeys used for all the websites he or she is regularly browsing. The United Kingdom Government, however, established a standard list of accesskeys and their actions (S – Skip navigation; 1 – Home page; 2 – What's new; 3 – Site map; 4 – Search; 5 – Frequently Asked Questions; 6 – Help; 7 – Complaints procedure; 8 – Terms and conditions; 9 – Feedback form; 0 – Access key details). This standard has the advantage to offer a short list for users to remind. Unfortunately, while this standard is commonly followed by British government and official websites, it is far from being generally used outside the United Kingdom.
The second problem caused by accesskeys is that, they can enter in conflict with shortcuts implemented by the applications used by the user (Operating System, web browser, screen reader...) and they generally overcome shortcuts. Thus, an accesskey “d” will prevent those using Internet Explorer to access the address bar. Because of these conflicts, governments such as the Canadian one consider, in their accessibility guideline, that accesskeys should not be used (Treasury Board of Canada, 2004).
Joe Clark wrote: “accesskey is the delinquent teenager of accessible HTML” (Clark, 2002). Indeed, accesskeys are not mature yet to be properly used as an accessibility help. However, if a worldwide standard on their use was to be developed in the future they could be a strong tool for all Internet users, disabled or not.