School of Cosmic Physics – DIAS

DIAS – DIAS 2024 – 84 years of Discovery

Research Opportunities – DIAS

Samhain agus Science – DIAS

Events from November 22 – 14th July 2025 – DIAS

Columbia-DIAS-Yale Initiative Update – DIAS

DIAS 2020 – Marking 80 Years of Discovery – DIAS

Page not found – DIAS

News – DIAS

School of Celtic Studies – DIAS

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

February 2025

January 2025

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Title / URL	Issues
School of Cosmic Physics – DIASwww.dias.ie/cosmicphysics/	2
DIAS – DIAS 2024 – 84 years of Discoverywww.dias.ie/	2
Research Opportunities – DIASwww.dias.ie/research-opportunities-at-dias/	2
Samhain agus Science – DIASwww.dias.ie/samhain-agus-science/	2
Events from November 22 – 14th July 2025 – DIASwww.dias.ie/events/list/	2
Columbia-DIAS-Yale Initiative Update – DIASwww.dias.ie/2022/09/19/cdy-initiative/	2
DIAS 2020 – Marking 80 Years of Discovery – DIASwww.dias.ie/about-us/dias2020/	2
Page not found – DIASwww.dias.ie/invented-url-for-404-page	2
News – DIASwww.dias.ie/category/dias/dias-news/	2
School of Celtic Studies – DIASwww.dias.ie/celt/	2

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Where this issue has occurred