Showit’s Keyboard Focus Update Increases Web Accessibility

If you’ve been following CONTRAST since the beginning, you’ll know that we’re a fan of web accessibility.

And if that word is new to you, check out this post.

Or this post, specifically the part where it defines “Operable”.

Actually, if you have time, check out both posts.

I’ve always been torn about Showit’s duality—it’s easy to use for a certain group of people.

If you have difficulty using your mouse or other motor impairments, however, using Showit’s drag-and-drop functionality can be challenging.

And the thing is, some of the people you want to serve might be having these difficulties.

But yesterday night, I discovered something that made me SQUEAL.

I was playing around with a Showit site and *for fun*, I decided to use the Tab key to navigate the site.

(This is the alternative to using a mouse to hover on webpage elements—an action called “focusing”.)

The ol’ Showit would go through these elements, one by one, but wouldn’t show you the currently-focused element.

But yesterday night, I was pleasantly surprised to see a blue border around the focused elements.

I don’t know how long it has been since Showit rolled out this feature but I’m over-the-moon that it’s out.

To see it in action, watch the video below.

I’ve never been so excited to see mandarin orange borders appear on a website before.

At the release of this post, it seems that the focus-visible rollout only applies to text links, not text with click actions. Still, it’s better than not having a focus-visible feature at all.

Now, as a designer, I know that this shade of orange might not work for your colour palette.

But as someone who designs for people, this is one big step towards web accessibility.

And for a no-code website to do this?

It’s freakin’ awesome.

What do you think? Did you know Showit rolled out this feature?