Research Facilities Overview | UAF Research

uarctic_home | UArctic

Research at UAF | UAF Research

Home | UAF | Strategic Plan

Home | UAF | Office of the Chancellor

Achieving R1 | Achieving R1 at UAF

UAF Nanook Family Connection | Information for parents and family

A to Z listing | UAF

Land, Sea and Space Grant | University of Alaska Fairbanks

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

April 2025

March 2025

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Title / URL	Issues
Research Facilities Overview \| UAF Researchwww.uaf.edu/research/research-entities/	3
uarctic_home \| UArcticwww.uaf.edu/uarctic/	3
Research at UAF \| UAF Researchwww.uaf.edu/research/	3
Home \| UAF \| Strategic Planwww.uaf.edu/strategic/index.php	3
Home \| UAF \| Office of the Chancellorwww.uaf.edu/chancellor/index.php	3
Research at UAF \| UAF Researchwww.uaf.edu/research/index.php	3
Achieving R1 \| Achieving R1 at UAFwww.uaf.edu/r1/index.php	2
UAF Nanook Family Connection \| Information for parents and familywww.uaf.edu/parents/index.php	2
A to Z listing \| UAFwww.uaf.edu/uaf/a-z.php	2
Land, Sea and Space Grant \| University of Alaska Fairbankswww.uaf.edu/uaf/about/land-sea-space-grant.php	2

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Where this issue has occurred