Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-ui] `interactivity: focusable` (#13040)

> I intentionally did not go in the weeds, as (from memory, which can be faulty) most use cases I’ve come across have just needed _some_ way, _any way_ to make elements focusable via CSS, rather than depending on a particular answer to these questions.
> 
> That said, it may be helpful to frame it in terms of requirements / considerations.
> ...

I noticed that this issue _starts_ with a proposed solution, in the title, and only later steps back to some use cases. This is an anti-pattern in designing features. As described in the [Explainer Explainer](https://www.w3.org/TR/explainer-explainer/#introduction), and in [Mozilla's elaboration](https://github.com/mozilla/explainers?tab=readme-ov-file#minimum-viable-explainer), it's best to lay out the problems that need to be solved before jumping straight to a proposal.

Because this issue started out with a solution proposed, that's likely to derail any further productive discussion on it. I'd suggest that this issue be closed, and a new one created that starts with just a description of the problems that people are hitting, which make them think that CSS control of focusability might be useful. Perhaps a full explainer would help, so that apparent-consensus can get collected into it, instead of spread across the eventual thread. It would be ideal to address @frivoal's concerns from https://github.com/WICG/spatial-navigation/issues/25#issuecomment-376868319 (the [csswg-drafts copy of the thread](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/3379) is jumbled) in that same post.

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Received on Tuesday, 4 November 2025 19:21:25 UTC