What are access keys?

Access keys are used to provide a keyboard shortcut to links and other items on a webpage. They are often used to provide basic navigation and to allow users to go straight to a form field that needs to be filled in (Alt+S to enter the search box, for example).

Who do they help?

For people with disabilities, the advantages are manifold:
People who don't use a "visual-based" web browser (text-to-speech readers and braille readers for example) can navigate around the site without relying on visual clues, or contextual links. By providing them with a set of understandable and consistent commands, we make their browsing experience easier and quicker.

The same is true of people with limited mobility - they may have a hard time controlling a mouse to click on links, and tabbing through menus can be slow going - by providing access keys, we limit the amount of mouse use and allow them to navigate quickly and easily through the site.

While we tend to think of access keys being aimed solely at assisting people with disabilities, they can be of use to anyone. Just like normal keyboard shortcuts, regular visitors and users of a site will become accustomed to using the keyboard shortcuts rather than always clicking links.

Also, users of any browser that does not have a pointing device, for example a mobile phone, will often be able to benefit from the judicious use of access keys.

Problems with Access Keys

There are a number of problems with access keys, some so fundamental that they have prompted many usability and accessibility professionals to stop using them entirely. Before reviewing the major issues, a couple of minor points to bear in mind are:

1. There is no way for a browser to automatically display all access keys available on a given site - if a website wants them to be permanently visible, they must either be listed somewhere on the page, or be suitably referenced where needed (for example Home
2. Different browsers behave differently, particularly with reference to access keys. Mozilla based browsers (like FireFox) will follow a link as soon as the access key is pressed, Internet Explorer will "focus" on the link (wrap it in a dotted-lined box) when the key is pressed and then follow the link when the user presses "Enter". Even the key used by different browsers, or even different versions of the same browser, to use the access key (the "modifier", 'Alt', for example) changes. This gets even more confusing if the user is using a screen reader like 'Jaws', which works "on top" of the web browser, adding new keyboard shortcuts throughout.

Lack of Standards

There are no universally recognised standards for access keys. So, each site that a user visits could use a different key for a particular function (visiting the home page for example). This makes it difficult for users to instantly understand how they are able to navigate around the site, particularly as the list of access keys is not automatically displayed on the page.

The UK government has a list of access keys that should be used for all of their sites, which are also being used as a de facto standard by a number of other organisations and websites worldwide. They define the following keys:

Comparing this list to other sites at the forefront of accessibility, the main difference tends to be the choice of 'S' as the "skip navigation" link. For example, Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM ) and Dive Into Mark (the homepage of Mark Pilgrim - an accessibility guru and creator of diveintoaccessibility.org, among other things) both use the number '2' for this function.

There are strong advantages to using numbers where ever possible, as these are less likely to conflict with existing key combinations, about which more will be explained below. In combining these existing "good practice" guides, we begin to arrive at a list of frequently used, sensible access keys for general, site wide links.

Most fundamental to this list is the use of access key '0' to take the user to a page which gives information about the access keys used throughout the site - if this is here, and is generally known, then the other access keys can always be referred to.

Overwrite existing keyboard shortcuts

Even with our list of handy, "semi-standard" access keys, we have a major problem to address: browsers. While we want to allow users to access as many features as possible using access keys, ideally we don't want to change the way their browser works. Unfortunately, many browsers use the same modifier key for access keys as they do for normal keyboard shortcuts. Even worse, they let the access key override the normal behaviour.

For example, Alt+D in Internet Explorer takes the cursor up to the address bar, so that a user can type in a new URL. If we add an access key for our Dogs section, suddenly the user is unable to access the address bar with their normal keyboard shortcut (in fact, the normal keyboard short cut changes to "Press Alt, let go, then press D", but any action that requires pressing keys within a certain time frame is clearly impractical for any users with limited motor skills, assuming of course they know it has changed and that it is even possible to access it another way).

Because of this, it is important to try and avoid key conflicts wherever possible, remembering that access keys don't always work case-sensitively. In general, normal keyboard shortcuts use letters rather than numbers, meaning that, as we saw earlier, it is better to have numbers for our access keys as it limits the chance of a conflict occurring. Even though 'S' (used in the UK government standards) is not generally used as a shortcut, it is important to bear in mind the variation that occurs when different languages are involved, especially non-latin alphabets, which obviously behave quite differently.

So, we have limited ourselves to using numbers so that we don't override existing behaviours and can do this while corresponding to something approaching a standard of access key descriptions. Unfortunately, even these aren't always going to work perfectly - the screen reader 'JAWS' uses numbers 1 and 2 for shortcuts in some versions, which is particularly frustrating, as 'JAWS' users are one of the main groups of people we're trying to help!

The Solution:

There is talk of implementing an entirely new system of access links as part of XHTML 2.0. This will be, unfortunately, some way off. Until then, the best we can do is to provide people with no more than a few links that interfere with their web browser as little as possible, while providing some basic assistance finding their way around.

For this reason, we have used only 3 access keys: Home (1), Skip navigation (2) and Access Key Information (0). Would you like to use more access keys to the detriment of keyboard shortcuts? Are you having problems with the existing access keys? After a number of responses, we can reconsider depending on the replies that we get, so use the contact form to give us your feedback.