Re: [EXTERNAL] Practical examples of implementing WCAG 2.2 focus appearance

Hi Bureau,

I imagine you may be able to get away with keyboard focus indicators that don't conform to brand guidelines for the simple reason that they aren't normally visible, so your brand guideline enforcers may not ever see them or even realise they exist. There will be at most one focus indicator visible ay any time. If the user only uses a mouse and never tabs through the product they may never see them. An exception may be if focus is moved programmatically to a specific element, for example when a page opens or when the user does something that adds new content to the page. In those cases you may or may not decide to display the focus indicator to make it clear to keyboard users where focus has been moved to. If you do display it, it may be possible to code logic that only displays it if the user action that triggered the focus move was a keyboard action, so mouse only users won't see those focus indicators either. It can get more complex when taking into account AT use because ATs often emulate mouse actions, but it may well be possible i your situation to produce a full set of focus indicators that most users will never be aware of. Even if the brand guideline enforcers become aware that they exist, they may then be prepared to accept this minor violation for a perceived small number of outlier users.

Mark
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From: Bureau Toegankelijkheid <info@bureautoegankelijkheid.nl>
Sent: 20 September 2025 20:09
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Practical examples of implementing WCAG 2.2 focus appearance

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Hello everyone,

I wanted to share a recent observation and also ask for insights from the group.

In some projects we’ve worked on, the new WCAG 2.2 focus appearance requirements (2.4.11 and 2.4.12) have raised questions among designers and developers. Specifically:

  *   How do you balance sufficient contrast of focus indicators with brand guidelines that use subtle color palettes?
  *   Have others found practical patterns or component libraries that already meet these requirements “out of the box”?
  *   For teams with limited resources, what’s the most efficient way to retrofit focus indicators on large design systems?

I would be very interested to hear about experiences, solutions, or approaches that others in this community have tried.

Thank you in advance for sharing your perspectives!

Best regards,
Allon Dery
Bureau Toegankelijkheid


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