We’ve all been kicking off 2021 in a myriad of ways so far, and next Monday, I’ll be kicking mine off again, this time with my monthly appearance on the Now with Dave Brown morning show on AMI-Audio.

This month, I’ll be talking to Dave about a reality that is unbeknownst to most of us: which is that for millions of people out there who can’t fully use a mouse to navigate online and need to rely on the use of their keyboard or assistive technology that relies on robust keyboard support, casually browsing the web is an inefficient, frustrating and utterly broken experience.

Going beyond the mouse

I realize that there’s a lot to unpack there, so let me break it down for you. First off, not everyone out there relies on a mouse or a trackpad when using their computers. No joke. In fact, roughly 7% of working-age adults who have severe dexterity difficulties are likely to choose, out of necessity or preference, to use their keyboard to navigate a page or some kind of assistive technology to browse content online.

In some cases, this assistive technology will take the form of an adapted mouse, with or without a trackball, or a specialized keyboard, with or without a keyguard. In other, more extreme cases, however, their needs will require wildly different sets of tools, such as adaptive switches, clickers, refreshable braille displays, sip-and-puff devices, or screen reader technology, just to name a few. The list of possibilities goes on and on, and the tools vary greatly.

Some of those who struggle to operate within the confines of your typical point-and-click device paradigm will often even choose to rely on voice dictation software to command their computers, or a combination of eye-tracking software, coupled with virtual keyboards that pop up on the screen to control the interface. And beyond those who do have a physical or motor disability that requires specialized tools to help work around their personal challenges, you will find a slew of other people suffering from multiple sclerosis, dyspraxia, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other conditions that impair or limit their fine motor skills.

In a lot of cases, these people will simply prefer not to use a mouse at all because it either induces sharp physical pain or causes a lot of frustration as they struggle to do what the rest of us otherwise take for granted.

In short, those we typically refer to as keyboard-only users, whether they’re sighted or not, all share at least two things in common:

1. They will tend not to use or rely on a mouse when they’re browsing the web, and
2. They usually get an awful experience online, as a result of this situation they find themselves in.

Let me prove it to you.

Take the no-mouse challenge

If you have a hard time imagining how awful of an experience I’m talking about, then I challenge you to try it out for yourself and see just how bad browsing the web is when you can no longer rely on your mouse or trackpad.

I call it the “no-mouse challenge”, and the idea is pretty simple: you go over to a website that you know really well (I suggest trying your own if you have one and you’re game!), and simply set out to accomplish what you would normally do — but without any use of your point-and-click devices. Navigating through a menu bar, checking out a newsfeed, scrolling down a timeline, watching a video, reading an article, purchasing an item, downloading a document, etc.

However, here’s the catch: all you are allowed to use to navigate to the different parts of your screen or the different controls of the page are your keyboard keys. No mouse, no trackpad, and more importantly, no cheating! You set out a timer, and as soon as you hit a wall, get stuck, or feel forced to rely on your mouse or your trackpad to achieve what it is that you’re trying to do, well, your time’s up, and the challenge is over. See just how long it takes before you hit that roadblock!

Realizing how bad this experience is on most websites out there is what I like to refer to as “taking the keyboard navigation red pill”.

This is an activity I use regularly in training and workshop sessions to raise awareness, and without fail, participants are blown away and stunned by the realization that the web is incredibly brittle as soon as we go off the beaten track of mouse navigation.

Basic keyboard navigation concepts

In short, what you need to understand is that if there’s anything you can’t accomplish using just these combinations, then it means that the site you’re looking at is not as friendly as it could be for people with motor or physical disabilities.

Now, to be fair, asking you to take on this challenge without giving you a few pointers would be cruel, so let me help you out a bit by going over some keyboard navigation basics. The entire experience of keyboard navigation can be summarized by a combination of six sets of keys, all of which are already at your disposal if you are using a physical keyboard. Let’s take a look.

• TAB key: Moves from one active element to the next on the page, hopefully in a logical and predictable order
• SHIFT + TAB keys: Moves from one active element to the next on the page, but this time, in reverse order
• ARROW keys: Cycles sequentially through related controls (such as a group of radio buttons, dropdown menu options, or a series of tabs)
• SPACE BAR: Toggles states of specific controls (such as checking or unchecking a checkbox, triggering a button, or toggling a switch)
• ENTER key: Triggers specific controls, such as submit buttons and links (much in the way you would with a mouse click)
• ESCAPE key: Dismisses dynamically displayed objects, such as modals and tooltips (akin to hitting that little x in the corner or clicking outside).

If years of doing this with hundreds of people are any indication of what awaits you, I’ll bet you whatever you want that even equipped with these techniques, you won’t last more than a few minutes before you either reach this revealing WTF moment and ultimately throw in the towel… unless, of course, you happen to be on a website that was purposefully built to be accessible to people with disabilities.

And trust me, those sites are definitely far and few in between! Can’t wait to try it out? Open a new tab and go try that out for yourself. That’s ok, I’ll wait. This post will still be here when you come back.

But be warned: once you pop that red pill, there’s no going back!

So? How’d that go for you?

Welcome back! Did you like what you found? Chances are, as you were trying to navigate using just that keyboard and those key combinations, you ran into a few problems, such as:

• Not being able to tell where you were, because there wasn’t any visual indication of your progress,
• Losing sight of the visual indicator every now and then, and getting confused about which element on the page currently had focus,
• Triggering modal windows and such, and clearly seeing that the keyboard focus was not moved to those objects,
• Skipping or jumping right over entire parts of the page you KNEW could be interacted with,
• Jumping around the active elements on the page in a random, confusing and illogical order,
• Maybe even getting trapped on some object that completely stopped you dead in your tracks!

Sadly, issues like those are not at all unusual. And if this felt incredibly annoying to you, know that this is pretty much the norm out there, when it comes to the experience that is provided on most websites to someone who has to forego the use of a mouse to browse content online. If you thought this handful of painful minutes was a horrible experience to go through, imagine how it must be for someone who has to suffer through this every single day.

If you thought this handful of painful minutes was a horrible experience to go through, imagine how it must be for someone who has to suffer through this every single day.

Because for people who depend largely on keyboard navigation, that experience is their default. Organizations can, and must, do better.

Making the digital space more inclusive of people with disabilities is something all of us can contribute to. Even if you do not own a website, or have the technical skillset required to make improvements on web pages yourself, you can still play an active role in letting organizations know when the experience they provide falls short for those who cannot rely on a mouse or a trackpad to browse content online. Why not drop them an email when you notice something broken?

As they like to remind us in airports (remember those?), if you see something, say something!

What if, in 2021, we all pledged to take that red pill and navigate websites with our keyboards more regularly? And when we encountered issues, we made it a point to politely and constructively report back those issues or problems to organizations who fail to create a viable navigation experience beyond the paradigm of a point-and-click device? That would help build the awareness at a much deeper level and would go a long way towards creating a digital space that is more inclusive of everyone.

When it comes to awakening to the shortcomings of keyboard navigation, Morpheus summed it up best in the 1999 movie The Matrix: “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.”

Which one did you take? Let me know when you wake up.

The UX Collective donates US$1 for each article published on our platform. This story contributed to Bay Area Black Designers: a professional development community for Black people who are digital designers and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area. By joining together in community, members share inspiration, connection, peer mentorship, professional development, resources, feedback, support, and resilience. Silence against systemic racism is not an option. Build the design community you believe in.