Re: Usability testing please!

Mark Tranchant wrote:

They do seem to be a bit contentious. I might remove them altogether. In
Firefox/Win, a simultaneous Alt+H activates the site access key, but a
sequential Alt, H opens the help menu. This doesn't seem to apply to the
Linux version, though.

And you probably shouldn't expect users to hit Alt+H, end up on your help
page and then realise that they can hit back, then press alt, release it
and then press h to achieve the effect they want.

Have you ever successfully opened a web-hosted m3u file with xmms?

Actually, no. It didn't work so I assumed it was your problem. Ho hum. I
don't think your server is doing anything wrong in insisting on a "/" at
the front of the URL.


--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

David Dorward wrote:

Mark Tranchant wrote:

They do seem to be a bit contentious. I might remove them altogether. In
Firefox/Win, a simultaneous Alt+H activates the site access key, but a
sequential Alt, H opens the help menu. This doesn't seem to apply to the
Linux version, though.

And you probably shouldn't expect users to hit Alt+H, end up on your help
page and then realise that they can hit back, then press alt, release it
and then press h to achieve the effect they want.

For sure. Your view is that access keys are bad, then?

In an ideal world, a browser would have separate "modes" for access keys
and browser shortcuts. From a principles-driven point of view, I
shouldn't be authoring my pages with lower *potential* "accessibility"
to work around shortcomings in the users' browser. Such a standpoint,
however, will result in lower *actual* "accessibility".

Hm.

--
Mark.
http://tranchant.plus.com/

Mark Tranchant wrote:

For sure. Your view is that access keys are bad, then?

In theory they are quite a good idea, but thanks to the implementations in
pretty much every browser on the market, in practice they are more trouble
then they are worth.

In an ideal world, a browser would have separate "modes" for access keys
and browser shortcuts.

Like Opera.


--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Mark Tranchant wrote:

For sure. Your view is that access keys are bad, then?

Not bad in themselves. They could be a nice idea. But too many
browsers have implemented them in ways which interfere with other user
interfaces (e.g keyboard shortcuts) and make them, in practice, worse
than nothing.

It's a dilemma.

In an ideal world, a browser would have separate "modes" for access
keys and browser shortcuts.

Indeed, and at least one does have. (I'm thinking of Opera).

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Mark Tranchant wrote:

In an ideal world, a browser would have separate "modes" for access
keys and browser shortcuts.

Indeed, and at least one does have. (I'm thinking of Opera).

My mistake - in an ideal world, *all* browsers would have separate
modes. Just one without, and accesskeys break that browser users'
experience.

--
Mark.
http://tranchant.plus.com/