News - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

Contact - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

ERDF Archive - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

NWRA Members - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

KT Boost - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

TU RISE - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

NWRA Staff - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

THRIVE - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

EU Affairs - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

Corporate Governance - Northern & Western Regional Assembly

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

May 2025

April 2025

Northern and Western Regional Assembly

Title / URL	Issues
News - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/news/	6
Contact - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/contact/	6
ERDF Archive - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/erdf/erdf-archive/	6
NWRA Members - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/nwra-members/	6
KT Boost - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/erdf/schemes/kt-boost/	6
TU RISE - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/erdf/schemes/tu-rise/	6
NWRA Staff - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/nwra-staff/	6
THRIVE - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/erdf/schemes/thrive/	6
EU Affairs - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/eu-affairs/	6
Corporate Governance - Northern & Western Regional Assemblywww.nwra.ie/corporate-governance/	6

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

Northern and Western Regional Assembly

Where this issue has occurred