This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Navigation and focus: visible, findable, in a sensible order
Users need to be able to orient themselves: every page needs a meaningful title, a way past repeated blocks, a sensible focus order, a focus that's always visible and never covered, and link text that's understandable on its own.
- Visible focus is the most commonly deliberately removed part of accessibility: many see the browser's default outline as ugly and switch it off. That makes the page unusable for keyboard users — you can no longer see where you are. A custom, styled focus indicator is explicitly allowed; removing it with no replacement isn't.
- "Focus not obscured" is new since WCAG 2.2, and it hits sticky header bars: when tabbing, the focused element slides under the fixed bar and becomes invisible, even though it has focus.
- Link text like "more" or "click here" is meaningless from within a screen reader's link list. The link text should say where it leads — even without the sentence before it.
