Lightbox Gone Wild was one of the first to implement this. A Javascript/CSS based modal window, which had to be serviced before access the page was returned. Sort of like a cool looking dialogue box. It was new for the time, and everybody joined on the bandwagon, especially cosmetics conscious designers. There have been many more since then, which increase the ease of implementing them.

The problem is that unlike native browser dialogue boxes, Javascript based boxes don’t come with the same keyboard access. In fact, they don’t come with any access at all. The most annoying example of the need for keyboard access to dialogues is Facebook. Every click of a link pops up a dialogue. Without any keyboard access, it takes the mouse to focus the input, key-presses to provide the input, and the mouse again to submit (a tap of the Enter-key doesn’t do anything).

With whatever reach I have to the developer community, I ask you to please provide keyboard access to form controls whenever you feel the need to use modal dialogues. Sticking to native dialogue boxes isn’t really a bad idea, but if you have to make things look good, at least make them usable.

P.S: Yes, the title is a play on the word ‘model’.