Lifestyle: Latest updates on travel, money, food, sex and beauty

Sport - Latest news, rumours and updates on football, snooker, boxing and more

TV Soaps News: Latest spoilers and gossip

News: Latest breaking news, top stories and updates

Metro.co.uk: News, Sport, Showbiz, Celebrities from Metro

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Snooker – News, scores, updates, results, schedule and analysis

UK News: Latest breaking headlines, top stories and updates

Sex & Relationships: Dating, tips, sexual health and advice

About Metro.co.uk and Metro newspaper – our editorial policy, who we are, how to contact us and how to work for us | Metro UK

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

May 2025

April 2025

Metro

Title / URL	Issues
Lifestyle: Latest updates on travel, money, food, sex and beautymetro.co.uk/lifestyle/	5
Sport - Latest news, rumours and updates on football, snooker, boxing and moremetro.co.uk/sport/	5
TV Soaps News: Latest spoilers and gossipmetro.co.uk/tv-soaps/	5
News: Latest breaking news, top stories and updatesmetro.co.uk/news/	5
Metro.co.uk: News, Sport, Showbiz, Celebrities from Metrometro.co.uk/	5
First time visit: View without clicking anythingmetro.co.uk/	5
Snooker – News, scores, updates, results, schedule and analysismetro.co.uk/tag/snooker/	1
UK News: Latest breaking headlines, top stories and updatesmetro.co.uk/news/uk/	1
Sex & Relationships: Dating, tips, sexual health and advicemetro.co.uk/lifestyle/sex/	1
About Metro.co.uk and Metro newspaper – our editorial policy, who we are, how to contact us and how to work for us \| Metro UKmetro.co.uk/about/	1

Ensure controls change appearance when they are selected

Metro

Where this issue has occurred