All events | University of Ottawa

Gazette | University of Ottawa

Library | Library

Current students | Current students

Careers | About us

Transformation 2030 | About us

Media | About us

Academic support | Study

Health and wellness | Campus life

Undergraduate studies | Study

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

February 2025

January 2025

University of Ottawa

Title / URL	Issues
All events \| University of Ottawawww.uottawa.ca/en/events-all	46
Gazette \| University of Ottawawww.uottawa.ca/en/gazette-news	44
Library \| Librarywww.uottawa.ca/library/	38
Current students \| Current studentswww.uottawa.ca/current-students/	37
Careers \| About uswww.uottawa.ca/about-us/careers	34
Transformation 2030 \| About uswww.uottawa.ca/about-us/vision-values-history/transformation-2030	34
Media \| About uswww.uottawa.ca/about-us/media	34
Academic support \| Studywww.uottawa.ca/study/academic-support	33
Health and wellness \| Campus lifewww.uottawa.ca/campus-life/health-wellness	32
Undergraduate studies \| Studywww.uottawa.ca/study/undergraduate-studies	31

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

University of Ottawa

Where this issue has occurred