Retirement Guides | Standard Life

Pension Guides | How do Pensions Work? | Standard Life

Standard Life Employer

Investment Guides | Standard Life

Standard Life | Making Good Choices With Your Life Savings

Funds | Personal pension | Standard Life

Investments | Standard Life

Retirement | Standard Life

Charges | Personal Pension | Standard Life

Personal Pension | Private Pension Plan | Standard Life

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

August 2025

July 2025

Standard Life

	Title / URL	Issues
	Retirement Guides \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/retirement/guides	38
	Pension Guides \| How do Pensions Work? \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/pensions/guides	38
	Standard Life Employerwww.standardlife.co.uk/employer	37
	Investment Guides \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/investments/guides	37
	Standard Life \| Making Good Choices With Your Life Savingswww.standardlife.co.uk/	36
	Funds \| Personal pension \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/pensions/personal-pension/funds	36
	Investments \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/investments	35
	Retirement \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/retirement	35
	Charges \| Personal Pension \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/pensions/personal-pension/charges	35
	Personal Pension \| Private Pension Plan \| Standard Lifewww.standardlife.co.uk/pensions/personal-pension	34

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

Standard Life

Where this issue has occurred