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I have been reading all the guidelines and I am slightly confused. Do all links on then navigation bar need to have a keyboard shortcut in order to comply with WCAG 2.1 AA? The guidelines seem to mention more what how to comply if you use them but doesn't state you have to use them so I am confused.

Thanks in advance.

CommodoreC64
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2 Answers2

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Short Answer

No

Long Answer

No - you are confusing several sections of WCAG.

Keyboard shortcuts are separate to skip links, which are what I think you are getting confused by.

Skip Links allow a screen reader user to jump past the navigation at the top of a page, this avoids having to tab past all of the navigation each time they enter a page.

Menus - as long as they are semantically correct (<nav> with an <ul> of links) are accessible anyway as screen reader users navigate via links, tab stops, headings etc. using shortcuts on their screen readers (if you have drop down menus then there are a lot of things to consider beyond the scope of this question).

Shortcut keys allow different actions and sections to be accessed quickly via the given shortcut key.

I would advise against setting these, if you do you need to:

  • provide ways to change the keys via a settings menu
  • a way to disable the keys (as they may interfere with a user's keyboard shortcuts they use for their screen reader)
  • explain what the shortcut keys are (and update these descriptions if a user changes their preferred shortcuts) etc. etc.

They are not worth the effort for a simple website and should only be used in complex applications for features (not generally for navigation, but for things like a WYSIWYG).

Community
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GrahamTheDev
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  • Thanks this is what I thought my understanding of it was :). I wanted to avoid doing it for various reasons but the site must comply with WCAG AA standards. I will produce a skip link though. – CommodoreC64 Feb 11 '20 at 11:55
  • I obviously wasn't clear (unless I am misunderstanding your response), **shortcut keys are not a WCAG requirement**, do not use them, they will cause you loads more headaches than they will solve and are not needed in 99% of cases. – GrahamTheDev Feb 12 '20 at 00:06
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You need to make sure that default system behavior of keyboard shortcuts is not overridden by your website/application. If you do override the shortcut key, you need to let the user know of it and provide a mechanism to change those shortcut keys to user choice.

aditya
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