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Access Keys

Access keys let you navigate around a website without using your mouse.

They can be used to jump directly to different sections of a website or certain areas within a page, without having to move your mouse at all.

Table of Access Keys used on www.friendsofchina.org

Access key Function
0 go to Access Keys page
1 go to www.friendsofchina.org English Home page
2 skip to main content of current page (for non-visual browsers)
3 go to www.friendsofchina.org Site Map page
4 go to www.friendsofchina.org Chinese Home page

How to use Access Keys in your Browser

Browser What to do
Internet Explorer 5+ (PC) Hold down the ALT key, press the number of the access key, release both keys then press ENTER
Internet Explorer 4 (PC) Hold down the ALT key and press the number of the access key
Internet Explorer 5+ (Mac) Hold down the CTRL key and press the number of the access key
Internet Explorer 4.5 (Mac) Access keys are not supported
Netscape 6 and earlier (PC and Mac) Access keys are not supported
Netscape 7 (PC) Hold down the ALT key and press the number of the access key
Firefox 1, Mozilla (PC) Hold down the ALT key and press the number of the access key
Firefox 2 (PC) Hold down the SHIFT and ALT keys and press the number of the access key. Unfortunately, if you have SHIFT-ALT defined for other things (for example switching input methods) this will not work. To go back to the old Firefox 1 way of doing things, type "about:config" in the Firefox address bar and change "ui.key.contentAccess" to "4".
Firefox, Mozilla (Mac) Hold down the CTRL key and press the number of the access key
Safari and Omniweb (Mac) Hold down the CTRL key and press the number of the access key
Opera Hold down the Shift key and press Escape, release both keys, then press the number of the accesskey

Notes & feedback

Please note that some assistive technology tools such as the IBM HomePage Reader and WindowEyes already make use of the alt+[access key] combinations. As such, users of these tools will not be able to use these access keys.

These access key assignments are based on research into best practice across the web (in an attempt to be consistent with other sites' access keys), and an understanding of the key global navigation requirements of www.friendsofchina.org users.

If you have any comments on how we could make better use of access keys, please email us your feedback.

Standards compliance

  1. All pages on this site are Bobby AAA approved, complying with all the Bobby guidelines. This is always a judgement call; many accessibility features can be measured, but many can not. I have reviewed all the guidelines and believe that all these pages are in compliance.
  2. All pages on this site is WCAG AAA approved, complying wih all priority 1, 2, and 3 guidelines of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Again, this is a judgement call; many guidelines are intentionally vague and can not be tested automatically. I have reviewed all the guidelines and believe that all these pages are in compliance.
  3. All pages on this site are Section 508 approved, complying with all of the U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines. Again, a judgement call. I have reviewed all the guidelines and believe that all these pages are in compliance.
  4. All pages on this site validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. This is not a judgement call; a program can determine with 100% accuracy whether a page is valid XHTML. For example, check the home page for XHTML validity.
  5. All pages on this site use structured semantic markup. H2 tags are used for main titles, H3 tags for subtitles. For example, on this page, JAWS users can skip to the next section within the accessibility statement by pressing ALT+INSERT+3.

Links

  1. Many links have title attributes which describe the link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully describes the target (such as the headline of an article).
  2. Links are written to make sense out of context.

Images

  1. All content images used in this site include descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include null ALT attributes.
  2. Complex images include LONGDESC attributes or inline descriptions to explain the significance of each image to non-visual readers.

Visual design

  1. This site uses cascading style sheets for visual layout.
  2. This site uses only relative font sizes, compatible with the user-specified "text size" option in visual browsers.
  3. If your browser or browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content of each page is still readable.

Accessibility references

  1. W3 accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind each guideline.
  2. W3 accessibility techniques, which explains how to implement each guideline.
  3. W3 accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to accessibility.
  4. U.S. Federal Government Section 508 accessibility guidelines.

Access Keys W3C XHTML 1.0 Level Double-A conformance icon, W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 W3C CSS