Character Key Shortcuts - Success Criterion 2.1.4 (Level A)

Question

If your site or application provides character key shortcuts (letters, numbers, punctuation, symbols) is there a way for users to turn off or reconfigure the shortcuts?

Why is this important?

Character key shortcuts help users quickly perform a command; however, these shortcuts can be problematic for people who use assistive technology devices or speech recognition software. Sometimes shortcut keys in one program can be used differently in another program. For example, the letter “m” in Gmail activates the “mute conversation” but the letter “m” using screen reader NVDA activates the “go to next frame.” Users need to have a way to turn off shortcut keys or reconfigure them to prevent unintended actions.

Whom does it benefit?

Example 1

As a student who uses speech recognition software to complete homework,
I want to turn off keyboard shortcuts on websites
so that I do not have to worry about them conflicting with other shortcut keys.

Example 2

As a person with a cognitive disability,
I want to reconfigure shortcuts to ones I am already familiar with
so that I only have to memorize a handful of them.

What should you do?

Review site or application for any specialized keyboard shortcuts. If present, make sure the user has control to modify or turn off these commands.

How do you do it?

Ensure at least one of the following is true:

Provide a way to turn off shortcut keys.
Provide a way to reconfigure shortcuts to include one or more non-printable keyboard keys (e.g., Ctrl, Alt).
The keyboard shortcut for a user interface component is only active when that component has focus.