Research Facilities Overview | UAF Research

uarctic_home | UArctic

Research at UAF | UAF Research

Home | Office of the Bursar | Office of the Bursar

Home | UAF | Strategic Plan

Home | UAF | Office of the Chancellor

Achieving R1 | Achieving R1 at UAF

Campus map home | Campus map and visitors' guide

Home | Office of Admissions

A to Z listing | UAF

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

July 2025

June 2025

University of Alaska Fairbanks

	Title / URL	Issues
	Research Facilities Overview \| UAF Researchwww.uaf.edu/research/research-entities/	5
	uarctic_home \| UArcticwww.uaf.edu/uarctic/	5
	Research at UAF \| UAF Researchwww.uaf.edu/research/	5
	Home \| Office of the Bursar \| Office of the Bursarwww.uaf.edu/bursar/index.php	5
	Home \| UAF \| Strategic Planwww.uaf.edu/strategic/index.php	5
	Home \| UAF \| Office of the Chancellorwww.uaf.edu/chancellor/index.php	5
	Achieving R1 \| Achieving R1 at UAFwww.uaf.edu/r1/	5
	Campus map home \| Campus map and visitors' guidewww.uaf.edu/campusmap/	5
	Home \| Office of Admissionswww.uaf.edu/admissions/index.php	4
	A to Z listing \| UAFwww.uaf.edu/uaf/a-z.php	3

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Where this issue has occurred