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Article #7
Standards for Access Keys
By Leta Labuschagne, 10 July 2007.
Following on after the previous article which outlined the problems with the accesskey attribute of navigation links, further research revealed that in some parts of the world, at least, governments are attempting to set a standard list of access keys to provide some semblance of consistency for web site visitors.
United Kingdom
In the UK Section 2.4.4, UK Government accesskeys standard of the e-government Resources Handbook recommends the following accesskeys standard:
- s - Skip navigation
- 1 - Home page
- 2 - What's new
- 3 - Site map
- 4 - Search
- 5 - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- 6 - Help
- 7 - Complaints procedure
- 8 - Terms and conditions
- 9 - Feedback form
- 0 - Access key details
New Zealand
The NZ Government Agency Web Site Standards recommend navigation access keys for government agency web sites as follows:
- 1 - Home
- 2 - Site Map
- 3 - Search
- 9 - Contact Us
- [ - beginning of main content. This is known as a Skip Link.
- / - re-directing to the all-of-government portal (refer to http://www.govt.nz/linking for details).
United States
The US Government has supposedly not yet committed itself to setting a standard (the author could not establish the fact), but several on-line reports suggest that US academic institutions are following a convention similar to that of the UK Government. Australian government sites and European commercial sites are reportedly also following the UK trend.
What next?
At least there are many in the web development community who are concerned about the issue of standards and a consistent navigation experience for the disabled web site visitor. However, it is unfortunate that government agencies are attempting standardisation in isolation, while the internet is a global forum.
It would be really useful if the W3C HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines could include a global recommendation for standard access keys, taking into account the recent developments in browser accessibility and how that affects the web site developer's options.
And lastly, how do browsers implement the activation of access keys?
From a survey of the current on-line information and through personal verification for a selection of these browsers, the following seems to be the current state of the art:
| Browser | Version | Activate Access Key |
|---|---|---|
| Internet Explorer | IE < 4 | Accesskey not supported |
| Internet Explorer | IE 4 | Alt + Accesskey |
| Internet Explorer | IE 5+ (Windows) | Alt + Accesskey, then Enter |
| Internet Explorer | IE 5, 6 (Mac) | Control + Accesskey |
| Firefox | FF <= 1.5 (Windows) | Alt + Accesskey |
| Firefox | FF 2 (Windows) | Alt + Shift + Accesskey |
| Firefox | FF 2 (Mac) | Control + Accesskey |
| Netscape Navigator | NN < 6 | Accesskey not supported |
| Netscape Navigator | NN 6-8 (Windows) | Alt + Accesskey |
| Netscape Navigator | NN 9 (Windows) | Alt + Shift + Accesskey |
| Netscape Navigator | NN 6+ (Mac) | Control + Accesskey |
| Opera | Early versions | Accesskey not supported |
| Opera | v7+ (Windows or Mac) | Shift + Escape, then Accesskey |
| Mozilla | (Mac) | Control + Accesskey |
| Mozilla | (Windows) | Alt + Accesskey |
| Safari | v1.2+ (Mac) | Control + Accesskey |
| Camino | (Mac) | Accesskey not supported |
See also this interesting article Keyboard Accessibility - Providing Keyboard Shortcuts Using accesskey on the WebAIM website.
About the author: Leta Labuschagne studied web design at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and is the Director of Goose Tree Web Design. This article may be freely copied and re-used as long as the author credit and this copyright statement remains intact.