Should sliders support WASD keys?

[samreid]

In phetsims/projectile-data-lab#235 (comment) @catherinecarter noted that for the angle stabilizer slider:

The left/right arrows are working well, the WASD keys are not working.

@matthew-blackman and I tested another simulation and saw that WASD was not a supported input modality for sliders. Should it be? @terracoda and @jessegreenberg what do you think?

[catherinecarter]

For context, the reason I brought it up is because it's in the keyboard help dialog as an option.

[samreid]

Are you referring to this part?

[samreid]

Please note I later added this section:

phetsims/projectile-data-lab#235 (comment)

[jessegreenberg]

No, I don't think so. The slider UI component doesn't typically support WASD keys. @catherinecarter does the additional section in #876 (comment) resolve your concern?

[terracoda]

Draggable Objects that are represented as sliders under the hood are communicated to Assistive Technologies (AT) as sliders and only need to work like sliders work, i.e., with Arrow keys, Pg Up and Down keys, Home and End keys.

The WASD keys are only needed for custom interactions, that is draggable objects that cannot be represented by a native HTML slider. Good examples are the balloons in BASE, or the Both Hands interaction in RaP. The individual hands in RaP are sliders and only respond when using the Arrow keys.

The reason for this is that for custom interactive objects, even though AT (i.e., screen reader software) are supposed to release the arrows to the application, they may not do so, so the WASD keys are provided as optional movement keys in case the Arrow keys are not released or do not respond well.