Focus Order
When users navigate with the keyboard, focus must move through the page in an order that preserves meaning and operability.
What it requires
WCAG 2.0 SC 2.4.3 requires the keyboard tab order to follow the visual reading order — left-to-right, top-to-bottom in LTR languages — and to traverse interactive components in a sensible sequence.
Common failures: positive `tabindex` values that yank focus out of natural order; CSS `order` declarations on flex/grid items that visually reorder content without updating the DOM order; modal dialogs that don't move focus to the modal on open.
Common Shopify failure
Theme uses `tabindex="1"` on the search box to "make it focus first" — pulls focus before the skip-nav and breaks every other interactive element's order. CSS `order: -1` on a "promoted" product card so it appears first visually but tabs last.
How to fix it
AccessComply removes positive `tabindex` values (replaces with `tabindex="0"` or no attribute), reorders DOM elements when CSS order has been used to visually rearrange interactive content, and adds focus-trap helpers for modal dialogs.
Merchant QA checklist
- Scan the storefront page where this pattern appears: product pages, collection pages, cart drawer, customer-account pages, and any landing page built with theme sections.
- Confirm the issue is fixed in the rendered browser output, not only in the Liquid file. Shopify section settings, app blocks, and third-party scripts can reintroduce the same 2.4.3 failure after a theme edit.
- Re-test the affected component with keyboard navigation and a screen-reader accessibility tree before publishing the theme, especially when the fix changes markup or ARIA attributes.
How AccessComply handles it
AccessComply treats WCAG 2.4.3 as a rendered-storefront issue first. The scanner checks the live DOM and computed styles, maps the finding back to the Shopify theme file that produced it, then classifies the fix as a guided partial fix. When automation is safe, the app writes the smallest theme-code change needed and keeps the original theme backup available. When merchant judgment is required, the issue is surfaced for manual review instead of pretending the page is fixed.
Primary source: W3C — WCAG 2.0 Understanding 2.4.3