Library Resource Lending | Carlow Co Co

Carlow Garden Festival 2024 | Carlow Co Co

Climate Action | Carlow Co Co

Voting and Elections | Carlow Co Co

Rural Water | Carlow Co Co

Animal Welfare and Control | Carlow Co Co

Contact Us | Carlow Co Co

Bike Week | Carlow Co Co

Housing | Carlow Co Co

Check the Register | Carlow Co Co

All controls on the page - including links, buttons, and fields - should show when 
they have been selected by the keyboard.

You can confirm this yourself by loading a webpage and using the Tab key to navigate 
through it. Anything you can select should alter its appearance when selected. 
For example, a text field might change color, or have a distinctive border applied. 

This is default behavior for all standard web controls, and so if this issue is appearing
it is because this default behavior has been disabled. Or alternatively, if you have written
your own custom controls, these will need styling to support focus states.

## How to fix

Links and form controls typically define an `outline` CSS style, which ensures
they are highlighted automatically, for example:

```css
input:focus (outline: 2px solid red);
``` 

If you choose to override or disable the default `outline`, you should specify an accessible 
alternative, such as a border or background color.

### Elements appear to change in the browser

Focus states should be defined in CSS alone, and not require JavaScript to work.

Try disabling JavaScript on the page, and see if focus is still visible. If it not,
then the focus state won't work with assistive technologies that don't have a physical
keyboard, e.g. mobile phones.

Some more unusual means of implementing a focus state cannot be detected or measured
automatically. These include:

* Focus implemented via pseudo-elements - such as `::after` or `::before`.
* Focus using `:focus-within` (JavaScript current provides no way to access these).
* Focus cascaded to child elements, e.g. a `<span>` inside an `<a>` tag. We detect
  some of these cases, but there are variations that we cannot detect.

Currently, there is no practical way to assess these focus states automatically.

### Unexpected elements are focusable

You may be surprised to see tags like `<div>` or `<span>` being shown as focusable.
If an element has a `tabindex` of 0 or higher, it becomes focusable. Any HTML tag can be made 
focusable in this way, this is so that custom controls (e.g. your own drop-down menus, or 
sliders) can support keyboard navigation. [Learn more about tabindex on MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/tabindex).

## Further reading

* [WCAG 2.4.7](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/focus-visible.html)

ensure-focus-is-visible

June 2024

May 2024

Carlow County Council

Title / URL	Issues
Library Resource Lending \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/libraries/library-resource-lending	1
Carlow Garden Festival 2024 \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/events/carlow-garden-festival-2024	1
Climate Action \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/environment/climate-action	1
Voting and Elections \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/governance-and-administration/voting-and-elections	1
Rural Water \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/water/rural-water	1
Animal Welfare and Control \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/veterinary/animal-welfare-and-control	1
Contact Us \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/governance-and-administration/contact-us	1
Bike Week \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/events/bike-week	1
Housing \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/housing	1
Check the Register \| Carlow Co Cocarlow.ie/news/2024/check-register	1

Ensure controls change appearance when they are selected

Carlow County Council

Where this issue has occurred