[WG: Accessibility] Seeking input for CKEditor issue on providing user help

[Richwine, Brian L]

Hello,

The CKEditor is a giant leap forward in making the WYSIWYG editor for Sakai accessible. There is much about it that is accessible now, to keyboard only users especially, that wasn't accessible in the older FCKEdit. Unfortunately, it requires that the user knows of the existence of special hot key combinations to access various features. For instance, that they need to press Alt+F10 to get access to the CKEditor's toolbar and to use the ESC key to get back out.

I am wondering about the best method for providing means for the end user to have access to the necessary help information for using the WYSIWYG editor.

I checked the tool specific help in couple of tools (Assignments, Syllabus), and the Overview page for each tool included a "Using the WYSIWYG editor" link in a "How do I?" section. Unfortunately, that page is currently specific to the FCKEdit and doesn't include any hotkeys information. There are a few issues I see here:

1.       This requires the user to activate the tool specific help, know what "WYSIWYG" means, and find that link among all the others.

2.       The editor help information needs to be specific to the editor in play (FCKEdit, CKEditor, TinyMCE, etc.) as the hotkeys and availability varies by editor.

3.       End users probably won't know if they are using a given editor (FCKEdit and the CKEditor look very similar).

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be best to suggest adding a visible "Editor Help" link. It could be positioned right above the editor (aligned to the right). This link could bring up the help tool with a page specific to the given editor.

Or, a sidebar could be displayed alongside the editor that contains a short list of important help information (hot keys, at least) and a link to the larger entry in the help tool. Like how the Confluence system has the "Help Tips" sidebar when in Wiki Markup mode.

Thanks,
  Brian



Brian Richwine
Adaptive Technology Support Specialist
Adaptive Technology and Accessibility Centers
Indiana University - Bloomington/Indianapolis
http://iuadapts.indiana.edu
(812) 856-4112

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