Guideline 9. Design for device-independence.
Source Article: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-device-independence
Typically, web developers build pages to be used almost exclusively with a mouse. The only usual exception is when data is entered into forms. However, there are people out there who don’t use a mouse. They may use the keyboard but there are also head wands, or voice command tools that people use. Most of the guidelines we’ve looked at have dealt with a page being understood, thus using text-equivalents. This guideline deals more with the actual ability to get around.
First priority is to provide client-side image maps. Since server-side maps are almost extinct, it would probably be more difficult to do this incorrectly. All objects and links need to be accessible to all devices. This can be difficult to do without reducing accessibility for non-handicapped users. Logical event handlers, such as “on-click”, or “on-focus” should be used for scripts, thus allowing them to be used whether the client has the same script technology. Forms should be given tab-indexes to make navigation simple. Finally, if there are dominant links such as main navigation links, they can be given shortcut keys to be accessed quickly.
For now, I need to figure out how to make links accessible with a keyboard.
