Calendar • Community Meeting: Carbon Canyon, Carbon Mesa, Ca

Calendar • Skate Park Groundbreaking

Calendar • Regular Planning Commission Meeting

Calendar • Regular City Council Meeting

Calendar • Special City Council Meeting Work Session

Calendar • Caltrans PCH Master Plan Feasibility Study

Agenda Center • Malibu, CA • CivicEngage

Resources | Malibu, CA - Official Website

News Flash • "Frames of Nature" Student Art Exhibition at Ci

How Do I...? | Malibu, CA - Official Website

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

July 2025

June 2025

City of Malibu

Title / URL	Issues
Calendar • Community Meeting: Carbon Canyon, Carbon Mesa, Cawww.malibucity.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=12208	91
Calendar • Skate Park Groundbreakingwww.malibucity.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=12212	91
Calendar • Regular Planning Commission Meetingwww.malibucity.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=11632	91
Calendar • Regular City Council Meetingwww.malibucity.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=11655	91
Calendar • Special City Council Meeting Work Sessionwww.malibucity.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=12217	91
Calendar • Caltrans PCH Master Plan Feasibility Studywww.malibucity.org/Calendar.aspx?EID=12211	91
Agenda Center • Malibu, CA • CivicEngagewww.malibucity.org/agendacenter	89
Resources \| Malibu, CA - Official Websitewww.malibucity.org/92/Resources	1
News Flash • "Frames of Nature" Student Art Exhibition at Ciwww.malibucity.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1869	1
How Do I...? \| Malibu, CA - Official Websitewww.malibucity.org/118/How-Do-I	1

Ensure controls change appearance when they are selected

City of Malibu

Where this issue has occurred