Assuming that a mouse will be used to navigate your site may impact users in negative ways. This is most commonly seen with menus that appear when hovering over a section of the page, widgets that do not have keyboard hooks, multimedia content that doesn't use an accessible player, etc. Make sure your site is fully usable with the only a keyboard. Flip your mouse upside-down and try it out! Make sure that your site is usable just typing, using the tab key, making menu selections and more. The following are a few basic guidelines you should consider:
- The tab order should match the visual order of your site, allowing keyboard-only users to logically navigate through site content.
- Avoid the use of the Tabindex attribute. Some uses of Tabindex are acceptable under some scripting situations. Consider this article about the use of Tabindex.
- Use "skip navigation" or "skip to main content" links at the top of your pages to easily access the main sections of your page.
- Break up long pages into sections with anchor links.
- All menus on site should be able to be accessed using the keyboard.
- Do not use elements that only activate when a user hovers over items with a mouse, as keyboard-only or screen readers users will not be able to activate them.