If keyboard shortcuts are implemented using only a letter (including upper- and lower-case letters), punctuation, number, or symbol characters, provide a way to turn off or remap character key shortcuts:
Turn off: A mechanism is available to turn the shortcut off;
Remap: A mechanism is available to remap the shortcut to use one or more non-printable keyboard characters (e.g. Ctrl, Alt, etc);
Active only on focus: The keyboard shortcut for a user interface component is only active when...
All operations must use simple gestures that need only a single touch. Gestures that need two fingers or complicated movements can be hard to operate for people with hand tremors or limited movement. Users with alternative input devices such as a mouth stick, sip-and-puff, or head mouse also benefit. Simple gestures are easier for someone with cognitive impairments to remember and use. If the site or application does use multi-touch gestures, be sure to also provide simple interfaces.
Make it easier for users to operate functionality through various inputs beyond keyboard; however, it is essential that functions emulate a keyboard and that a mechanism to undo or abort an action is provided.
This guideline helps people with tremors or mobility impairments who may touch or click on the wrong location by mistake. This mistake can cause an unintended action. This success criterion also benefits people with cognitive disabilities, who can become confused when something unexpected happens because they activated a control by accident.
People with disabilities rely on interface controls that are used programmatically. These controls have a visual label, as well as a programmatic label, known as its Accessible Name. Users have a much better experience if the visible text labels of controls match their accessible names.
Speech input users can navigate by speaking the visible text labels of menus, links and buttons that appear on the screen. It’s confusing to speech input users when they say a visible text label they see, but the speech input does not work because the accessible name that is enabled as a speech input command does not match the visible label.
Ensure that functions that are triggered by moving a device (for example, shaking or tilting) or by gesturing towards the device (so that sensors like a camera can pick up and interpret the gesturing), can also be operated by more conventional user interface components, unless the motion is essential for the function or not using motions or gestures would invalidate the activity.
Users who may be unable to perform particular motions (such as tilting, shaking, or gesturing) because the device may be mounted or users may be physically unable to perform the necessary movement, should still be able to operate all functionality by other means (e.g., touch or voice input).
Some users may accidentally activate sensors due to tremors or other motor impairments. The user must have the ability to turn off motion actuation to prevent accidental triggering of functions.
Media player accessibility is essential for video content. Evaluate the accessibility and cross-device compatibility of the media player that comes with your video-distribution platform. Test the player in different platforms and devices to evaluate the user experience it provides out of the box.... Read more about ✎ Technique: Choosing a media player
Link text is the text you select for a link that describing what happens when a user activates it. So it needs to clearly and accurately convey the link's purpose. Commonly, link text is the name of the linked page or document. When a link leads to a document that's not a web page, such as a PDF or Word document, that should be clarified in the link text. Avoid overly terse, ambiguous link text, and avoid reusing the same link text within a page for links that lead to different destinations.
The title of a web page is the page's accessible name, and it will be the first thing read aloud by a screen reader when it starts reading the page. It will also be used by search engines, and it labels the browser’s tab containing the page.
Consistency is one of the cornerstones of good usability. Although it is possible in advanced CMSs to create radically different page layouts according to content type, it's important that areas outside of the page’s content area remain consistent across the site for wayfinding purposes. This can be controlled through carefully designing and implementing page templates.... Read more about ✎ Technique: Consistent layout
In long lists of links, it's helpful to show users which links they've already followed so they can focus on unseen content. Browsers do not tend to let you style visited links with anything but the color property.
Examples
✓ Good example
With link styling, as with many aspects of web-interface design, you can aid comprehension by capitalizing on convention. By default, browsers style unvisited...
People use different methods to find web content. Screen-reader users might prefer navigation regions, people with dyslexia might prefer the logic of a site map, and people with motor impairments might prefer to type in a search term using a search facility.
So it's important the search facility on your site is logically and conventionally placed and constructed for optimal accessibility.... Read more about ✎ Technique: Site search
It's important to provide consistent navigation regions to navigate between a site's pages and—where there is a lot content on each page—between sections of pages.
Clear, logical and consistent navigation tools reliably help people find their way to the content they need and recover quickly when they are in the wrong place. This helps everyone but particularly people with visual, cognitive, or motor impairments who might otherwise find it time-consuming to locate the information they need....
Autocomplete widgets can be helpful for accessibility because they can make it easier to enter text by providing suggestions based on the characters initially typed. This particularly helps people who find typing more difficult and people who may be susceptible to spelling mistakes.
Creating an accessible integrated autocomplete widget is a complex process. You need to ensure that screen-reader users are notified when the list of suggestions appears and that they can enter the list and select an option...
For a number of reasons including data persistence, performance and security, it is sometimes beneficial to terminate idle user sessions.
So that users do not lose data, it's important to warn them of a session that is about to expire and give them the option to continue. This is especially true in the case of people who might take longer to read or interact with a page due to a disability. It's important to make such prompts accessible.
Modal dialogs can enhance usability by focusing attention on a specific message that requires a user action to continue.
An accessible modal dialog is one where keyboard focus is managed properly, and the correct information is exposed to screen readers. HTML and WAI-ARIA can be used to provide the necessary semantic information, CSS the appearance and Javascript the behavior.