News | Royal Navy

Contact Us | Royal Navy

KHM Portsmouth | Royal Navy

KHM Plymouth | Royal Navy

KHM Clyde | Royal Navy

NAVYfit | Royal Navy

Home | Royal Navy

Accessibility | Royal Navy

Commando | Royal Marines

What We Do | Preventing Conflict

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

Royal Navy

Title / URL	Issues
News \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news	24
Contact Us \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/contact-us	24
KHM Portsmouth \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/khm/portsmouth	22
KHM Plymouth \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/khm/plymouth	22
KHM Clyde \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/khm/clyde	22
NAVYfit \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/navyfit	17
Home \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/	17
Accessibility \| Royal Navywww.royalnavy.mod.uk/accessibility	16
Commando \| Royal Marineswww.royalnavy.mod.uk/the-equipment/commando	15
What We Do \| Preventing Conflictwww.royalnavy.mod.uk/what-we-do/preventing-conflict	15

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

Royal Navy

Where this issue has occurred