Must-Have accesskeys?

A power-user question...

[JAB Creations]

What accesskeys are must-haves when visiting any website? Obviously these accesskeys would skip several steps (such as moving a mouse to click on an element to provoke an action in example). What keys would you not use and for what reasons?

- John

[Robin_reala]

I generally go by the UK Govt accesskey [cabinetoffice.gov.uk] standard, namely:

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

They’re unlikely to overlap with other key combinations, and the more sites that keep their accesskeys the same the more useful they become.

[pmkpmk]

Is anybody actually using this?

[simonuk]

I use them on all web sites and I stick with the UK government version for the same reason as posted above.

[pmkpmk]

Is any USER actually using these?

[plumsauce]

maybe not, but programming access keys into my own sites will help *me* move around :)

the standard just got copied into an email reminder to myself

[JAB Creations]

"Leet" video gamers rely heavily on their keyboards in place of using their mouse to limit their mouse to actions that are more useful with the mouse. I do that in games and I do that while I work. I've been working on the next version of my site and another very large project and I'm making it so visitors can navigate all of both sites without the mouse if they would want to. Most people wouldn't bother though I am "enthusiastic". Still if enough sites support "popular" accesskeys and keyboard related commands it would help mold sites more in to interactive applications(/xhtml+xml (bwhahaha)) then static pages with images, text, and *sighs* heavily nested tables! I'm not sure about following the British standard with the exceptions of 0, 1, and 4 (off the top of my head). I have other keyboard related plans though I'm a little disappointed that no one here has any accesskey preferences?

- John

[penders]

As suggested, 'the problem' with accesskeys is conflicting with browser defaults. Numeric accesskeys seem to be fairly safe and standard, although an article in Issue#156 of the .Net mag did state:

If you investigate which keys are left without clashes across various access technologies, you find the set of: x z ' = ( [ ] \ :

Numeric accesskeys are certainly a problem in FF1.5/Win, if the user wishes to type a non-standard character into a form field using the key combination Alt+(numeric code on keypad) - any numeric accesskeys will take preference.

Numeric accesskeys are 'tricky' to operate in Opera8 (and below?, Op9 is OK I think) since the numbers are used as browser defaults - you just have to 'be quick' to operate them.

[GaryK]

Is there a more international standard, or one that's more widely accepted than the UK one?

Personally I find most of the UK keys very helpful.

I'll also confess to using keys that might conflict with other things. "S" for Save. "C" for Cancel. And so on. I grew up in the age of DOS. I still prefer the keyboard.

My site gets a lot of mobile devices visiting it so I imagine keyboard shortcuts would be nicer than trying to maneuver a tiny mouse.

[victor]

I use a subset of the UK ones too. They are a useful compromise across a range of browsers.