GNOME 2.2 Desktop Accessibility Guide (multiplatform)

GNOME's philosophy is not to make accessibility features optional. Just like any other keynav feature, toolbar buttons being focusable (once it's fully and consisently implemented, which it isn't yet) is useful for any user who relies on keynav, not just "disabled" users.

Admittedly though, needing an extra click to refocus the document could be a little non-obvious or annoying for users used to toolbars on other platforms, and I'm sure we'd consider suggestions for improving this without impairing key navigability for other users or making it optional. (Perhaps the toolbar could return focus to the document when a toolbar button was clicked with the mouse but not when it was activated with the keyboard, for example, but the resulting inconsistent behaviour in doing it that way might introduce its own usability problems.)