Your health and wellbeing | Retail Trust

Emotional support | Retail Trust

Home | Retail Trust

Cookies policy | Housekeeping | Retail Trust

Our stories | Retail Trust

Privacy notice | Housekeeping | Retail Trust

Supported living | Retail Trust

Donate | Information | Retail Trust

Terms and conditions | Housekeeping | Retail Trust

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

Retail Trust

Title / URL	Issues
Your health and wellbeing \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/your-health-and-wellbeing	56
Your health and wellbeing \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/your-health-and-wellbeing?navCode=1049	56
Emotional support \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/your-health-and-wellbeing/emotional-support	38
Home \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/	38
Cookies policy \| Housekeeping \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/cookies-policy	28
Our stories \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/about-us/stories	27
Privacy notice \| Housekeeping \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/privacy-notice	24
Supported living \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/supported-living	22
Donate \| Information \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/get-involved/ways-to-give/donate	22
Terms and conditions \| Housekeeping \| Retail Trustwww.retailtrust.org.uk/terms-and-conditions	21

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

Retail Trust

Where this issue has occurred