I am working on building some 508 Compliant/Accessible web sites and am testing out how well the navigation works using only the tab key.
Under Mac OS X with Firefox, Opera, and Safari, by default, the tab key does not cycle through all of the links on a web page.
Firefox:
- Go to: System Preferences/Keyboard/Keyboard Shortcuts
- Click on the ‘All controls’ radio button towards the bottom of the dialog under the text that says: ‘Full Keyboard Access: In windows and dialogs, press Tab to move keyboard focus between:’
Safari:
- Enabling the aforementioned setting does not do it for Safari
- Go to: Safari/Preferences/Advanced
- Under ‘Accessibility:’ click on the checkbox next to ‘Press Tab to highlight each item on a a wepage’
Opera:
- Go to: Opera/Preferences/Advanced
- Click on ‘Shortcuts’ in the left-hand nav of the dialog
- Select ‘Enable single-key shortcuts’
- Opera does not implement keyboard navigation the way most other browsers do. To step through the links on a page, press the ‘Q’ key to go forward, and ‘A’ key to step backwards through the links on the page. ‘W’ and ‘S’ keys you to navigate between headings <hn> tags.
Chrome:
- Go to: Chrome/Preferences
- Scroll all of the way down to the bottom of the settings page and click on ‘Show Advanced Settings’
- Scroll down to ‘Web Content’
- Check the box next to ‘Pressing Tab on a webpage highlights links, as well as form fields’