Scrollable areas cannot be reached by keyboard
Automated check scrollable-region-focusable, run with axe-core
- WCAG
- 2.1.1 Keyboard, 2.1.3 (Level A)
- Severity
- Serious: completable, but painful
- Typical effort
- Moderate, 1 to 4 hours
- Category
- Keyboard
Who this affects
Keyboard-only users.
Why it matters
Content inside a scrollable container with no focusable children is unreachable without a mouse — often code blocks, wide tables or chat panes.
How to fix it
Add tabindex="0" to the scrollable container and give it an accessible name so its purpose is announced.
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Related checks: Keyboard
- Duplicate access keys
- Hidden elements can still receive keyboard focus
- Elements with role="text" contain focusable content
- No way to skip repeated navigation
- Focusable elements have no suitable role
- Frames with interactive content cannot be reached by keyboard
- Skip links point to nothing
- Positive tabindex values disrupt focus order