Why do people make it hard to see when an element has been tab selected?

[gleepower]

Currently I have quite bad RSI, which makes it harder for me to use a mouse. However, otherwise perfectly good websites often make the tab selection basically invisible or seem to actively remove it? Why do websites do this? What should you do in your CSS to make it obvious (a ugly black box would honestly suit me, as long as I know what I'm selecting).

[Jason Knight]

Because the majority of users and developers have no idea that websites can even be keyboard navigated. Of increasing annoyance is how many browsers now no longer even navigate anchors by default for the same reason, instead only focusing form elements. (

Even if in both cases it's a violation of the WCAG that could get you in trouble legally.

I ALWAYS give my anchors and other elements the same state for :focus as I do :hover... most people skip this out of ignorance. What's REALLY annoying is the people who turn off outline on :focus, as that's just willfully telling keyboard users to suck it.

Though if you have strain injury, you should consider a pointing device -- like a thumb based trackball -- that immobilizes the hand. For most carpal, repetitive stress, etc, users trackballs like the Logitech M570, MX Ergo, Elecom EX-G, or even the Perixx Perinence-517 work wonders.  Amazon even has a rebranded version of the Elecom they sell under their own name for around $24 that's fine-and-dandy.

It takes very little strength or exertion to move the ball meaning you don't develop pain across the entire hand like you do with a regular mouse. There is one hell of a conversion time at first, but once you get used to it? Well, it gets kind of hard to ever use a mouse or trackpad ever again because they suck so bad.

... and they also make amazing TV remotes if running a media center PC.

[fgm]

In my case it was just ignorance. I've fixed it applying the same treatment as :hover, thank you for the heads up.

However, I did not remove it, that would be really stupid... this would be a typical request by graphic artists self called "designers" when making a website.

[Jason Knight]

In my case it was just ignorance.

Which is the only forgivable one of the 3i... ignorant isn't an insult or something to be ashamed of, it just means you didn't know.

It's when you're told and still willfully ignore it that it goes from ignorant to stupid... and sadly far too many developers go that route instead.

See the derps who do all the other accessibility violations like using PX instead of EM, or ignoring colour contrasts, or flipping the bird at semantics and separation of presentation from content. You can tell them all the reasons not to do that, and some people will still vomit up an endless stream of why they're going to ignore it because they either "can't be bothered' or "don't care" or -- worst of all -- it's just "how they feel about it."

That last one being much akin to what Ron White said. "You can't fix stupid."