Public Notices - City of Colfax

Planning - City of Colfax

Engineering - City of Colfax

Finance - City of Colfax

Utility Billing - City of Colfax

Page not found - City of Colfax

Public Works - City of Colfax

Budget - City of Colfax

Current Development Projects - City of Colfax

Accounts Payable - City of Colfax

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 2025

May 2025

City of Colfax

	Title / URL	Issues
	Public Notices - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/city-clerk/public-notices/	1
	Planning - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/planning/	1
	Engineering - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/engineering/	1
	Finance - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/finance/	1
	Utility Billing - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/finance/utility-billing/	1
	Page not found - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/invented-url-for-404-page	1
	Public Works - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/public-works/	1
	Budget - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/finance/budget/	1
	Current Development Projects - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/planning/current-projects/	1
	Accounts Payable - City of Colfaxcolfax-ca.gov/government/finance/accounts-payable/	1

Ensure controls change appearance when they are selected

City of Colfax

Where this issue has occurred