UIW Admissions | Enrolling Now | Admissions

Page Not Found | UIW Home

University of the Incarnate Word | UIW Home

Alumni | Alumni

UIW Health Clinics | UIW Health

Visit UIW! | Admissions

Dreeben School of Education

School of Mathematics, Science and Engineering Home | University of the Incarnate Word

Financial Aid | Financial Assistance

Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences | College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences | University of the Incarnate Word

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

University of the Incarnate Word

	Title / URL	Issues
	UIW Admissions \| Enrolling Now \| Admissionswww.uiw.edu/admissions/index.html	79
	Page Not Found \| UIW Homewww.uiw.edu/invented-url-for-404-page	69
	University of the Incarnate Word \| UIW Homewww.uiw.edu/	68
	Alumni \| Alumniwww.uiw.edu/alumni/index.html	60
	UIW Health Clinics \| UIW Healthwww.uiw.edu/uiw-health/	57
	Visit UIW! \| Admissionswww.uiw.edu/admissions/visit.html	49
	Dreeben School of Educationwww.uiw.edu/education/index.html	49
	School of Mathematics, Science and Engineering Home \| University of the Incarnate Wordwww.uiw.edu/smse/index.html	48
	Financial Aid \| Financial Assistancewww.uiw.edu/finaid/index.html	48
	Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences \| College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences \| University of the Incarnate Wordwww.uiw.edu/chass/index.html	46

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

University of the Incarnate Word

Where this issue has occurred