Accessibility Testing Procedure

Keyboard Shortcuts

Guideline

If a keyboard shortcut is implemented in content using only letter (including upper- and lower-case letters), punctuation, number, or symbol characters, then at least one of the following is true:

• 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 that component has focus.

Intent

Character key shortcuts work well for many keyboard users, but are inappropriate and frustrating for speech input users — whose means of input is strings of letters — and for keyboard users who are prone to accidentally hitting keys. As a result, users must be able to turn off or reconfigure shortcuts made up of a single character key, or two or more successive character keys.

This success criterion is becoming increasingly important in the mobile realm as growing number of apps more fully enable keyboard controls.

This guideline doesn’t affect components such as listboxes and drop-down menus that contain words that may be selected by one or more character keys, since the shortcuts are only active when the components have focus. Similarly, components such as menus may be accessed or opened with an initial, non-single character shortcut (e.g., “ALT” or “ALT+F”). This makes the full path to invoking a menu a two-step shortcut that includes a non-printable key.

Note that Accesskeys are not affected because they include modifier keys.

Finding and Inspecting Applicable Components

• Identify any keyboard shortcuts (should be documented) and ensure the following one of the following is true:
  • The shortcut includes a non-printable key (such as the ALT or CTRL key) in the key combination.
  • A mechanism within the application is available to turn off keyboard shortcuts.
  • A mechanism within the application is available to remap the shortcuts.
  • The keyboard shortcut for a user interface component is only active when that component has focus.

Failure Conditions

• If any tests within the Finding and Inspecting Applicable Components section results in a failure:
  • Fails 2.1.4 Character Key Shortcuts