Not a term you’ll heard often or ever, but I will often ask my team “is it keyboard navigable?”— and yeah, I know that’s not in any fancy UX textbook, but it gets the point across. If your digital product can’t be fully used with just a keyboard, it’s straight up leaving people behind.
“If your digital product can’t be fully used with just a keyboard, it’s straight up leaving people behind.”Keyboard navigation isn’t just for when your mouse battery dies mid-session, or your trackpad decides to ghost you. It’s critical for users with motor disabilities, screen reader users, and even devs trying to tab through a form at lightning speed. Making sure your stuff works with a keyboard isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s part of building good, inclusive design. Plus, it just makes your UX tighter.
When you’re testing your design, actually put the mouse away. Tab through everything. Can you get to all the interactive elements? Can you see where the focuss is? (Spoiler: If you can’t see where you are, you’re lost.)
Some 🔥 tools to test keyboard accessibility:
- Axe DevTools – killer Chrome extension that highlights issues as you go.
- Wave – quick, visual feedback on accessibility problems.
- Keyboard only nav – old-school but effective: ditch the mouse and see how far you get.
- NVDA (Windows) or VoiceOver (Mac) – screen readers that give you insight into how real users experience your design.
Best practices? Make sure:
- Focus order follows logic (not some weird DOM spaghetti).
- All interactive elements are focusable with
tab. - Focus states are visible—not just styled into oblivion.
- Avoid keyboard traps (where you can get in, but can’t get out… like a menu with no escape key).
Bottom line: if your UI ain’t keyboard navigable, it ain’t finished. Get testing!
