Unreachable Elements

Property	Value
ID	unreachable-elements
Severity	Error
WCAG	2.1.1 Keyboard
Config	unreachableElements

What it checks

Detects visible elements matched by Keylens's interactive selector set that never receive focus during the bounded Tab crawl.

How it works

1. The crawler discovers all interactive elements on the page using DOM queries (buttons, links, inputs, selects, textareas, elements with interactive ARIA roles).
2. After the tab crawl completes, each discovered element is cross-referenced against the focus sequence.
3. Elements that were never reached via Tab are flagged.

Examples

Fail

<!-- Discovered by role, but not in the Tab sequence -->
<div role="button" onclick="doSomething()" class="card">Click me</div>

Pass

<!-- Button is natively focusable -->
<button onclick="doSomething()" class="card">Click me</button>

How to fix

• Use native interactive elements (<button>, <a href>, <input>) instead of <div> or <span> with click handlers
• If you must use a non-interactive element, add tabindex="0" and appropriate role
• Ensure elements with display: none or visibility: hidden are not discoverable as interactive

Keylens does not infer arbitrary JavaScript click handlers, traverse iframes, or traverse shadow roots. An incomplete Tab cycle or changing DOM can also produce false unreachable results.