On input validation and accessibility

I use a custom keyboard layout based on the Programmer Dvorak layout, where numeric keys are accessed using shift. Accessing number keys via shift is also present on, e.g., the bépo layout.

Over the past several months, I’ve noticed that more and more websites use validation that prevents me from entering numeric values. This is because the validation is performed ath the keycode level, and disallows the use of shift keys (or even the “Fn” key to access the keypad layer on my laptop keyboard). The culprits range from my bank, to PayPal, to an orchestra website, to Naxos Music Library.

Consider for example the following piece of validation code from NML that checks a page number is valid:

function GotoPageKeyDown(txtObject, txtKeyCode)
{
    
    if( txtKeyCode == 13)
    {
        GoToPage(txtObject);
    }

    if( (txtKeyCode == 189 || txtKeyCode == 109) ||
          (txtKeyCode >= 48 && txtKeyCode <= 57) || 
          (txtKeyCode == 8) || 
          (txtKeyCode == 18) || 
          (txtKeyCode == 37) || 
          (txtKeyCode == 39) || 
          (txtKeyCode == 46) || 
          (txtKeyCode == 116) || 
          (txtKeyCode >= 96 && txtKeyCode <= 105) ) {
          
        return true; }
      else {
      //alert(txtKeyCode );
        return false;
      }

}

Because I access digits through the “shift” key (keycode 16), the above validation blocks their entry as soon as I hit the shift key and returns false. If you really want to use javascript to validate input, please do so after the user has actually entered the input instead of as they attempt to do so. I should not have to regularly switch back to the standard US keyboard layout every time I need to enter numerical values in forms.