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Suggested additional note for focus-not-obscured (AAA), tweak AA note #4403

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Merged
merged 5 commits into from
Jun 20, 2025
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Suggested additional note for focus-not-obscured (AAA), tweak AA note #4403

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a9011c2
Suggested additional note for focus-not-obscured (AAA)
patrickhlauke May 18, 2025
64c07c3
Merge branch 'main' into patrickhlauke-AAA-follow-up-to-4104
patrickhlauke Jun 5, 2025
520c6ee
Add "fully" to the note in both AA and AAA
patrickhlauke Jun 9, 2025
a4fecfd
Merge branch 'main' into patrickhlauke-AAA-follow-up-to-4104
patrickhlauke Jun 9, 2025
202e621
Merge branch 'main' into patrickhlauke-AAA-follow-up-to-4104
mbgower Jun 20, 2025
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1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions understanding/22/focus-not-obscured-enhanced.html
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Expand Up @@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ <h2>Intent of Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced)</h2>
<p>Typical types of content that can overlap focused items are sticky footers, sticky headers, and non-modal dialogs. As a user tabs through the page, these layers of content can hide the item receiving focus, along with its focus indicator.</p>
<p>A notification implemented as sticky content, such as a cookie banner, will fail this success criterion if it partially covers a component receiving focus. Ways of passing include making the banner modal so the user has to dismiss the banner before navigating through the page, or using <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/css-scroll-snap/#propdef-scroll-padding">scroll padding</a> so the banner does not overlap other content. Notifications that do not require user action could also meet this criterion by closing on loss of focus.</p>
<p>Another form of obscuring can occur where light boxes or other semi-opaque effects overlap the item with focus. This form of obscuring is <em>not</em> in scope for this success criterion. While less than 100 percent opacity is not causing the component to be <q>visually hidden</q>, such semi-opaque overlaps may cause a failure of <a href="non-text-contrast">1.4.11 Non-text Contrast</a> and/or <a href="focus-appearance">2.4.13 Focus Appearance</a>. When a focus indicator can be covered by a semi-opaque component, the focus indicator should be assessed against 1.4.11 and 2.4.13. The intention in both situations is that the component receiving focus should never be obscured to the point a user cannot tell which item has focus.</p>
<p class="note">This criterion evaluates the focused <em>component</em>, rather than the focus <em>indicator</em>. The component itself does not include the focus indicator when checking that "no part of the component is hidden" - unless the focus indicator is inside the component, or focus is indicated by a change to the component itself. Although users benefit from both the component and the focus indicator (if external to the component) not being obscured when tracking the focus, for the purposes of this criterion only checking the component provides a clearer metric. However, if the focus indicator is obscured, it would likely fail <a href="focus-visible">2.4.7 Focus Visible</a>.</p>
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@mbgower mbgower Jun 6, 2025 •
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Slight wording changes to improve readability and to match the wording to the context of the AAA requirement.

Suggested change
<p class="note">This criterion evaluates the focused <em>component</em>, rather than the focus <em>indicator</em>. The component itself does not include the focus indicator when checking that "no part of the component is hidden" - unless the focus indicator is inside the component, or focus is indicated by a change to the component itself. Although users benefit from both the component and the focus indicator (if external to the component) not being obscured when tracking the focus, for the purposes of this criterion only checking the component provides a clearer metric. However, if the focus indicator is obscured, it would likely fail <a href="focus-visible">2.4.7 Focus Visible</a>.</p>
<p class="note">This criterion evaluates the focused <em>component</em>, rather than the focus <em>indicator</em>. The component itself does not include the focus indicator when checking that "no part of the component is hidden" — unless the focus indicator is inside the component, or focus is indicated by a change to the component itself. Users benefit from both the component and the focus indicator (if external to the component) not being obscured when tracking the focus; however, for the purposes of this criterion, only checking the component provides a clearer metric. If the focus indicator is fully obscured, it would likely fail <a href="focus-visible">2.4.7 Focus Visible</a>.</p>

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@patrickhlauke patrickhlauke Jun 6, 2025 •
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I don't think it makes sense to change that here. It matches the wording we already agreed on and used in the AA note #4104 and doesn't need changing for the AAA

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If you don't think it's more readable with the changes, okay. But if you think the mild editorial tweaks improve readability, maybe we should upgrade the AA at the same time. I think we should definitely consider the final change for "fully", as this is only likely to cause a failure of 2.4.7 if the focus indicator is fully obscured, no?

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@patrickhlauke patrickhlauke Jun 9, 2025 •
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the AA note didn't include "fully" https://github.com/w3c/wcag/pull/4104/files so yes that would need to be patched there too to keep them in line.

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done the "fully" to both AA and AAA, tweaked the PR description accordingly

</section>
<section id="benefits">
<h2>Benefits of Focus Not Obscured (Enhanced)</h2>
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