We need to document what should be done with
respect to keyboardability of hyperlinks within
the IDE, since we have these in various contexts
(e.g. the welcome screen).

Below is an email I sent to other HIE's outlining
the problem.  I think the right answer is #1.

 


Question: what key(s) should activate the hyperlinks?

Precedents: JLF uses space to activate things. 
Web browsers use Enter to activate things and
space to scroll the page.  Some other IDE's honor
the web page idioms for hyperlinks and for
web-page-like parts of the interface.

Designs:
There are three "obvious" design possibilities:
1) Enter activates hyperlinks, Space activates
other controls.
   Pro: Preserves space for scrolling web-page
things, and enter for default controls
   Con: Forces users to figure out what kind of
component has focus
2) Both enter and space activate hyperlinks, space
activates other controls
   Pro: Allows users to use whatever seems right
for hyperlinks
   Con: blocks space as a scrolling command in
web-page like things.
      Also, doesn't aid the user to figure out
what the (complex) keyboard rules are.
3) Space is used to activate everything (enter
isn't used)
   Pro: Simple and consistent
   Con: Abandons consistency with web page navigation.

I'm inclined towards #1, though #3 has a lot of
appeal (I'm concerned #3 will get in the way
if/when we get more web-page like interface stuff
in the IDE).

Thoughts?  To me, this seems like a "no win"
scenario... we've got two conflicting keyboard
navigation schemes, so there is no way to
absolutely bridge them.  I do'nt know enough about
keyboard users to have a sense of what their
preference would be.