#28165·directus

Tooltips usually don't appear on focus

Author: peteruithovenCreated Aug 29, 2026Updated Sep 16, 2026
LabelsImprovementStudioAccessibility

Describe the Bug

When I'm using alt / shift + alt to navigate to the site most icon buttons don't show their tooltip on focus. While they do appear on hover. It looks like for some reason most tooltip logic isn't applied to buttons or links but wrapper element.

No tooltip when search button has focusTooltip when filter button has focus

2 quick examples of recommendations:

A tooltip is a contextual text bubble that displays a description for an element that appears on pointer hover or keyboard focus.

From: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/Reference/Roles/tooltip_role

Content which can be triggered via pointer hover should also be able to be triggered by keyboard focus.

From: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/content-on-hover-or-focus.html

I realize this borders on feature request, but the inconsistency made it feel more like a bug.

To Reproduce

  1. Go to /admin/users
  2. Click on top header bar right of Active Users
  3. Click Tab (Search icon button is focused, no tooltip)
  4. Click Tab again (Filter icon button is focussed and tooltip appears)

Directus Version

v12.3.1

Hosting Strategy

Self-Hosted (Custom)

Database

No response