- Success Criterion 2.1.1
- Conformance level A
Tooltip Trigger That Can’t Be Reached by Keyboard Focus
2.1.1 — Keyboard
Scenario
Setting
A video-conferencing app's meeting controls
What’s wrong
Information available only via mouse-hover tooltip whose trigger is not focusable — no keyboard path to the content at all.
Example
<div onclick="submitForm()">Submit</div>Why it matters
Blind users, people with motor disabilities, and anyone operating the interface without a pointer.
How to test
Tab to a tooltip's trigger element: if it's not focusable (only mouse-hoverable), keyboard users never see the tooltip content.
How to fix
Make the tooltip trigger focusable and show the content on focus as well as hover.
<button onclick="submitForm()">Submit</button>A native button is focusable and triggers on Enter/Space automatically; a div needs all of that added by hand.
Outcome
On a video-conferencing app's meeting controls, this barrier is gone for blind users, people with motor disabilities — they get the same result as anyone else here.
Who is affected
Blind users, people with motor disabilities, and anyone operating the interface without a pointer.
Learn more
- Understanding Understanding document (opens in a new tab)
Related scenarios
- Feature That Only Responds to Mouse Events, Not the Keyboard
- Element That Loses Focus the Instant It’s Reached by Keyboard
- Clickable Element Acting Like a Link With No Real Keyboard Role
- Clickable Div With No Keyboard Focus or Key Handling at All
- Focusable Element That Enter and Space Don’t Actually Activate
- Custom Dropdown That Can’t Be Operated by Keyboard Arrows