Access key

In a web browser an access key or accesskey allows a computer user to immediately jump to a specific part of a web page via the keyboard. They were introduced in 1999 and quickly achieved near-universal browser support.

In the summer of 2002, a Canadian Web Accessibility consultancy did an informal survey to see if implementing accesskeys caused issues for users of adaptive technology, especially screen reading technology used by blind and low vision users. These users require numerous keyboard shortcuts to access web pages, as "pointing and clicking" a mouse is not an option for them. Their research showed that most key stroke combinations did in fact present a conflict for one or more of these technologies, and their final recommendation was to avoid using accesskeys altogether.

In XHTML 2, a revised web authoring language, the HTML Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium deprecated the accesskey attribute in favor of the XHTML Role Access Module. However, XHTML 2 has been retired in favor of HTML 5, which (as of August 2009) continues to permit accesskeys.

Access in different Browsers

A more complete list, which browser support the HTML Access keys are compared in the comparison of web browsers.

In most web browsers, the user invokes the access key by pressing Alt (on PC) or Ctrl (on Mac) simultaneously with the appropriate character on the keyboard.

Web Browser	Modifier	Effect	Notes
Amaya	Ctrl or Alt		Adjustable in preferences
Blazer		Element is activated immediately upon key press.	No modifier is needed for this web browser used on mobile devices.
Camino	Ctrl
Google Chrome 3 and higher	Alt on Windows Ctrl + ⌥ Option on Mac		Access Keys were not functional in 2.x builds of Chrome, but are now supported in current versions.
Firefox 2 & 3	Alt + ⇧ Shift on Windows Ctrl + ⇧ Shift on Mac		Prior to version 2.0 Firefox used just Alt Configurable via about:config
Internet Explorer	Alt	Prior to IE8, Alt + Access Key focused on the element, but required ↵ Enter to be pressed in order to activate the element
Konqueror	Ctrl	The modifier key must be released before the regular key is pressed.
Opera	⇧ Shift+Esc	The modifier key must be released before the regular key is pressed. Once the modifier key is released, browser lists the set of access keys on that page with action and user can hit the desired key.	Configurable via Graphical user interface
Safari 3	Ctrl for Mac Alt for Windows
Safari 4 and higher	Ctrl+⌥ Option on Mac Alt on Windows

Multiple access keys

If multiple identical accesskeys are assigned within the same document, IE will tab through them on each keypress (IE will tab backwards if ⇧ Shift is pressed as well). This way, elements can be logically grouped in various accesskey rings for easier navigation. IE 4.0 only supported letters of the English alphabet as accesskeys. Firefox 2.0 will activate the last of a group of elements assigned the same accesskey.

Specifying access keys

Access keys are specified in HTML using the accesskey attribute. The value of an element's accesskey attribute is the key the user will press (typically in combination with one or more other keys, as defined by the browser) in order to activate or focus that element. Though the accesskey attribute sets the key that can be pressed it does not automatically notify the user of the bound access key. One convention is for the page author to show the access key value by using the '<u>' tag to underline the a letter in the link's text corresponding to the accesskey assigned. For the link below you would press Alt+H on a PC, Ctrl+H on a Mac (the command key can give undesired results) and ⇧ Shift+Esc+H on Opera to be directed to index.html.

<a href="index.html" accesskey="h">Home</a>

or to emphasize'H':

<a href="index.html" accesskey="h"><em>H</em>ome</a>

alternatively, the following CSS can be used to indicate the character:

*[accesskey]:after {content:' [' attr(accesskey) ']'}

Emphasize '<em>' isn't necessary, but can be useful to the user. It helps them identify which key to press to navigate to where they want to. Another possible way of displaying which accesskeys do what is to create a page with all the accesskeys displayed. Or the webmaster could do both.

Use of standard access key mappings

As of 2004, a standard emerged using numbers, which promotes consistency and enables users more easily to predict keyboard shortcuts on different sites. These include, for example, 1 to go to the homepage, 4 for search, 9 for contact, and others. This scheme is now in use on popular sites such as ft.com and bbc.co.uk , as well as being built into popular message board software such as vBulletin and ultimatebb.

UK Government recommendation for access keys

• 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

See also

• Keyboard shortcuts

External links

• A bug report for the MediaWiki software regarding conflicts with Accesskeys – includes lengthy discussion of various problems on different platforms
• A CSS stylesheet to make access keys on a website visible
• ACCESS + KEY = Accesskey (XHTML Role Access Module still flawed)
• Accesskeys: Unlocking Hidden Navigation
• Accesskeys and Reserved Keystroke Combinations
• Changes to Accesskeys in Firefox 2.0
• Optimise for keyboard access
• Ui.key.contentAccess – instructions on configuring access key behavior in Mozilla Firefox
• UK Government suggested numerical key standard
• User-defined Accesskeys using PHP
• Using Accesskeys – Is it worth it?
• Using Accesskeys is Easy