Access Keys

Because of the many problems that are described below this website does not provide access keys to navigate it. The W3Chas now acknowledged that access keys are problematic and has deprecated them in XHTML 2.0.

What are access keys

Web pages using access keys allow users to jump to a specific part of a web page using the keyboard. Access Keys were introduced in 1999 and were supported by the majority of browsers. Browsers that originally supported access keys included:

The implementation of access keys in different browsers since, has not been universal and is very problematic.

Use of standard access key mappings

In 2004 a standard emerged which promoted consistency and enabled users to predict keyboard shortcuts on different sites. These access keys used numbers. For example, 1 to go to the homepage, 4 for search and 9 for contact.

Listed below are the recommended standard UK Government access keys:

Not all browsers now support these standards and Firefox no longer supports the use of numbers as access keys.

Browser Support

In most web browsers, on a PC, the user invokes the access key by pressing the 'Alt' key. On a Mac, users use the 'Ctrl' key simultaneously with the appropriate character on the keyboard.

Internet Explorer

IE will focus on the link and require 'Enter' to be pressed in order to activate the link.

When multiple identical access keys are used within the same document, IE will tab through them on each key press. IE will tab backwards if 'Shift' is pressed as well. This way, links can be logically grouped in various access key rings for easier navigation. IE 4.0 only supports letters of the English alphabet as access keys.

Opera

In Opera, the user presses 'Shift+Esc' followed by the access key, without 'Alt'.

Mozilla Firefox

In Mozilla Firefox 2.0 the access key keyboard combination was changed to 'Alt + Shift'. This was configurable via the 'about:config' file. In Firefox 3.0 this has been changed. The key combination only focuses on the link and 'Enter' is required after the access key combo.

Mozilla and Firefox versions prior to 3.0 will execute the corresponding links immediately on the press of the access key. If multiple identical access keys are assigned within the same document, Firefox 2.0 will activate the last of a group of links assigned the same access key.

Firefox now no longer supports numbers from being used as access keys.

So what now?

In 2002 a Web Accessibility consultancy carried out a survey to see if access keys caused issues for users of adaptive technology. This included screen reading technology that blind or low vision users might be using. The research showed that most key stroke combinations did cause conflicts for some of these assistive technologies. The final results recommended avoiding using access keys altogether. This website does not use access keys.

The W3C, the organization responsible for establishing internet standards, has acknowledged this short coming. The latest draft document from the W3C for XHTML 2 has deprecated the access key attribute.