First time visit: View without clicking anything

Blog | Arts Council England

NPO 2018-22: Helpful documents | Arts Council England

Time to think... | Arts Council England

Welcoming the National Plan for Music Education | Arts Council England

Our research library | Arts Council England

Supporting arts, museums and libraries | Arts Council England

Five questions with… Sanj Jagait | Arts Council England

When selecting a user interface component with the keyboard, the focus indicator must 
not be completely obscured by anything in front of it.

## Why this matters

When using a keyboard, it is important that the user can see where they are on the page.
If the focus indicator is obscured, the user may not know where they are, and may not
be able to interact with the page.

## Examples

Most common examples include:

* Banners at the top or bottom of the page, such as cookie banners
* Fixed navigation bars
* Fixed footers
* Popup modals, such as cookie consent modals

## How to fix

With elements that cover part of the screen, such as cookie banners, ensure
that the user can scroll to see any content behind the banner, without having to close
the banner.

With popup modals, it should usually be impossible to focus anything behind the modal.
Most common modal frameworks will automatically trap focus within the modal, so that
this is impossible. Example: [Bootstrap Modal](https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.2/components/modal/#live-demo).

## Further reading

This is part of the draft WCAG 2.2 specification and is subject to change.

* [WCAG 2.4.12](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/focus-not-obscured.html)

ensure-focus-is-not-obscured-minimum

June 2024

May 2024

Arts Council England

Title / URL	Issues
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.artscouncil.org.uk/	1
Blog \| Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk/creative-matters/blog	5
NPO 2018-22: Helpful documents \| Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk/npo/npo-2018-22-helpful-documents	3
Time to think... \| Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk/blog/time-to-think	2
Welcoming the National Plan for Music Education \| Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk/blog/welcoming-national-plan-music-education	2
Our research library \| Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk/research-and-data/our-research-library	2
Supporting arts, museums and libraries \| Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk/supporting-arts-museums-and-libraries	1
Five questions with… Sanj Jagait \| Arts Council Englandwww.artscouncil.org.uk/blog/five-questions-sanj-jagait	1
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.artscouncil.org.uk/	1

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

Arts Council England

Where this issue has occurred