Overall, this really is a great article. The following should be read with that in mind.
I’d suggest that adding javascript keyboard events is pretty fraught, and like @tabindex@ best avoided if possible. In the specific example, you add extra events for a @click@, but as far as I know all browsers (i.e. IE6 does) provide a native way to generate @click@ using the keyboard – whether it is enter, or space, or something else depends on the particular settings. (For the history buffs, this was what made the @activate@ event unnecessary).
Interfering with those by using Javascript will potentially cause problems. But it is unclear in this case that it solves any. And they get worse if you listen for particular keys – the “Я” key is pretty common in my office, so I guess “Z” less so.
Unfortunately, accesskey implementations are still pretty awful – most browsers forget to provide discoverability or configurability – and no modern browser has an implementation based on rel attributes.
So users accept the need to hit tab repeatedly instead of something that reaches the dizzying heights of “not terrible”, like Opera’s old setup, or what screenreaders provide.
Because at least modern screenreaders (and here’s a shameless plug for the free windows screenreader NVDA, which happens to be good) do handle various kinds of ARIA markup to help their users.
Chaals
Overall, this really is a great article. The following should be read with that in mind.
I’d suggest that adding javascript keyboard events is pretty fraught, and like @tabindex@ best avoided if possible. In the specific example, you add extra events for a @click@, but as far as I know all browsers (i.e. IE6 does) provide a native way to generate @click@ using the keyboard – whether it is enter, or space, or something else depends on the particular settings. (For the history buffs, this was what made the @activate@ event unnecessary).
Interfering with those by using Javascript will potentially cause problems. But it is unclear in this case that it solves any. And they get worse if you listen for particular keys – the “Я” key is pretty common in my office, so I guess “Z” less so.
Unfortunately, accesskey implementations are still pretty awful – most browsers forget to provide discoverability or configurability – and no modern browser has an implementation based on rel attributes.
So users accept the need to hit tab repeatedly instead of something that reaches the dizzying heights of “not terrible”, like Opera’s old setup, or what screenreaders provide.
Because at least modern screenreaders (and here’s a shameless plug for the free windows screenreader NVDA, which happens to be good) do handle various kinds of ARIA markup to help their users.