Family Days Out | English Heritage

What's On | English Heritage

Holiday Cottages | English Heritage

Annual Reports | English Heritage

Our Places | English Heritage

A history of the charity, English Heritage | English Heritage

Blue plaques | English Heritage

News | English Heritage

Get inspired and plan your historic day out | English Heritage

Our People | English Heritage

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 2025

May 2025

English Heritage

Title / URL	Issues
Family Days Out \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/familydaysout/	5
What's On \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/whats-on/	5
Holiday Cottages \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/holiday-cottages/	4
Annual Reports \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/annual-reports/	3
Our Places \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/our-places/	3
A history of the charity, English Heritage \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/our-history/	3
Blue plaques \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/	3
News \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/search-news/	3
Get inspired and plan your historic day out \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/	3
Our People \| English Heritagewww.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/our-people/	3

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

English Heritage

Where this issue has occurred