Focus does not change page context
What this criterion checks
This criterion maps to 3.2.1 On Focus. A detailed plain-language description is maintained in the WebLens criteria catalogue; the WCAG sub-test breakdown below describes exactly what the agent checks and what it does not.
How it's assessed
WebLens walks each user journey, captures a screenshot at every step, and an agent reasons over that evidence. See the how WebLens works for the full pipeline and the deterministic checks layered in for accessibility.
Sub-test coverage
3.2.1 On Focus is broken into 4 sub-tests. Coverage is honest about where the agent is reliable, where it only partially checks the requirement, and where a human reviewer is still needed.
2 full2 partial
- Moving focus to an element does not open an unexpected dialog or pop-upFull
Our tool detects new modal dialogs that appear solely because an element received focus. What still needs manual review: some allowed patterns — such as tab panels that update their displayed content when their tab receives focus — are not explicitly excluded from detection. If our tool flags a tab-panel content switch, a person should verify whether the change was a disorienting context change or an expected behavior that users are accustomed to.
- Moving focus to an element does not take the user to a different page or open a new windowFull
Our tool moves keyboard focus to interactive elements one by one and checks whether the page navigates away or a new window opens. These are the most disorienting "on focus" behaviors and are reliably caught.
- Borderline visual content changes on focus do not disorient usersPartial
When focus causes significant visual changes on the page that do not fall into the categories above (no URL change, no new window, no dialog, no focus jump), our tool uses visual comparison to determine whether the change would disorient users. This catches subtle rearrangements of page content that replace what the user was looking at. However, distinguishing between a helpful content update and a disorienting change of context requires judgment — flagged cases should be reviewed.
- Moving focus to an element does not unexpectedly move focus somewhere elsePartial
Our tool detects when focus jumps to an unrelated part of the page after an element receives focus — the user "lands" somewhere they did not expect. It correctly allows focus to move within a composite control (like into a dropdown's options). What still needs manual review: focus movement via advanced relationships between controls (where one element programmatically owns or controls another) may occasionally be misjudged. A person should verify flagged cases where the focus movement might actually be expected.
How reliable it is
This criterion is still building up testing data, so confirm its findings as you review. See Accuracy & confidence for how the confidence tags are set.