manual-review
Manual review: keyboard navigation and focus order
Flags that a manual review of keyboard navigation and focus order is required.
Applies to. Applies to every run, whatever the page contains. Keyboard operability and focus order are properties of the page as a whole, and no markup pattern rules the question out.
Expectation. Always cantTell, carrying one occurrence at the scan root. Whether focus can leave every component, whether the tab order follows the reading order, and whether the focus indicator stays visible in use all need a person driving the page. The rule exists so that need is stated in the results rather than left for the reader to remember.
Examples
<body><p>Any page content.</p></body>
Keyboard operability and focus order always need a person driving the page; this rule states that need on every run.
How to check
When this rule can’t decide, it reports cantTell and leaves the question to a person. Each question it can ask is listed here under its reason code, with the steps to answer it. A finding carries the same steps as howToCheck, in the scan’s language. See Output schema.
KEYBOARD_REVIEW
- Click the browser's address bar, then press Tab repeatedly to move through every link and control on the page.
- At each stop, check that you can see where focus is, and that the order follows the reading order of the page.
- Operate each control with the keyboard (Enter, Space, arrow keys) and open and close menus and dialogs.
- Where something cannot be reached or used with the keyboard, check whether the page offers another way to do the same with the keyboard alone, such as previous and next buttons for a carousel, or move up and move down buttons for a list you can drag. It only counts if it does everything the mouse can.
- Check that focus never gets stuck inside a component and that Escape or Tab lets you move on.
Pass. Everything works with the keyboard, directly or through another way that does the same job, focus moves in a sensible order and is always visible, and it never gets stuck.
Fail. Something cannot be reached or used with the keyboard in any way, focus traps the user, the order is confusing, or focus is invisible, which fails WCAG 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.4.3 or 2.4.7.