Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Accessibility

Fixing Focus Leaks: The `inert` Attribute vs. `aria-hidden` in Complex Modals

  Focus management is the entropy of UI development. You construct a visually isolated modal, utilize absolute positioning to layer it above your application, and implement a scrim to obscure the background. Yet, when a user presses   Tab , focus inevitably escapes the dialog, drifting into the navigational void behind the overlay. For screen reader users, the experience is arguably worse. While the visual layer suggests isolation, the Accessibility Object Model (AOM) remains flat. Without intervention, VoiceOver or NVDA will happily read the "faded out" background content, completely breaking the context of the modal. Historically, solving this required a fragile combination of  aria-hidden="true" , global  keydown  listeners to trap tab focus, and  tabindex  manipulation. Today, the  inert  attribute provides a browser-native primitive to solve this at the root level. The Root Cause: DOM Order vs. Visual Layers The core issue stems from the...