tabindex

The tabindex global attribute indicates that its element can be focused, and where it participates in sequential keyboard navigation (usually with the Tab key, hence the name).

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

It accepts an integer as a value, with different results depending on the integer's value:

• A negative value (usually tabindex="-1") means that the element is not reachable via sequential keyboard navigation, but could be focused with Javascript or visually. It's mostly useful to create accessible widgets with JavaScript. You can observe the Tabindex Accessibility example below to clear confusion.

  A negative value is useful when you have off-screen content that appears on a specific event. The user won't be able to focus any element with a negative tabindex using the keyboard, but a script can do so by calling the focus() method.

• tabindex="0" means that the element should be focusable in sequential keyboard navigation, but its order is defined by the document's source order.

• A positive value means the element should be focusable in sequential keyboard navigation, with its order defined by the value of the number. That is, tabindex="4" is focused before tabindex="5", but after tabindex="3". If multiple elements share the same positive tabindex value, their order relative to each other follows their position in the document source. The maximum value for tabindex is 32767. If not specified, it takes the default value 0.

  Avoid using tabindex values greater than 0. Doing so makes it difficult for people who rely on assistive technology to navigate and operate page content. Instead, write the document with the elements in a logical sequence.

If you set the tabindex attribute on a <div>, then its child content cannot be scrolled with the arrow keys unless you set tabindex on the content, too. Check out this fiddle to understand the scrolling effects of tabindex.

Tabindex Accessibility

HTML

<input type="file"
       id="f-upload"
       tabindex="-1"
       aria-role="button"
       aria-label="Click here to upload a file and view its content" />
<button role="presentation none"><label for="f-upload">Click here to view a file's text content</label></button>
<br />
<textarea id="f-contents" role="textbox" rows="8"></textarea>

CSS

#f-upload {
    position: fixed;
    visibility: hidden;
}
#f-contents {
    box-sizing: border-box;
    width: 100%;
}

JavaScript

var fReader = new FileReader(); // used to asynchronously convert blobs into text

var fUploadNode = document.getElementById("f-upload");
fUploadNode.onchange=function(){ fReader.readAsText( fUploadNode.files[0] ); };

var fContentsNode = document.getElementById("f-contents");
fReader.onload=function(){ fContentsNode.value = fReader.result; };

Result

(equivalent JSFiddle can be found here if MDN is down)

In the above example, you might use a label whose for attribute points to a file upload dialog. You can use tabindex to mark the label as focusable so that visual readers can see the selected button, but use WAI-ARIA to ignore the label and only present the visually-hidden upload button so that the assistive software can more simply understand that it is a file upload and thus be less prone to errors or mistakes that might impede the end user.

Accessibility concerns

Avoid using the tabindex attribute in conjunction with non-interactive content to make something intended to be interactive focusable by keyboard input. An example of this would be using a <div> element to describe a button, instead of the <button> element.

Interactive components authored using non-interactive elements are not be listed in the accessibility tree. This prevents assistive technology from being able to navigate to and manipulate those components. The content should be semantically described using interactive elements (<a>, <button>, <details>, <input>, <select>, <textarea>, etc.) instead. These elements have built-in roles and states that communicate status to the accessibility that would otherwise have to be managed by ARIA.

• Using the tabindex attribute | The Paciello Group

Specifications

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

See also

• All global attributes
• HTMLElement.tabIndex that reflects this attribute
• Accessibility problems with tabindex: see Don’t Use Tabindex Greater than 0 by Adrian Roselli