Accessibility Issue: aria-hidden element retains focus during onboarding wizard (v24.9)

[Sadatpour]

Hi Yoast team 👋,

I'm encountering an accessibility warning during the initial configuration wizard in Yoast SEO v24.9 — specifically in the Social Profiles step.

Here’s the warning from Chrome DevTools:

Blocked aria-hidden on an element because its descendant retained focus. The focus must not be hidden from assistive technology users. Avoid using aria-hidden on a focused element or its ancestor. Consider using the inert attribute instead, which will also prevent focus.
Element with focus:
Ancestor with aria-hidden:

Why this matters:
This can cause confusion for screen reader users, as a focused element becomes hidden from assistive tech. It's likely related to animation transitions (react-animate-height) and aria-hidden not syncing properly with focus.

Suggested fix:
Use inert instead of aria-hidden on non-interactive containers during transitions.

Ensure no interactive/focusable elements are within an aria-hidden="true" ancestor.

Consider managing focus explicitly during panel transitions in the onboarding flow.

Thanks for all the great work on accessibility — I appreciate your commitment to building inclusive tools!

[josevarghese]

Hi @Sadatpour

Thanks for creating the issue and for using the Yoast SEO plugin. I tried to replicate the accessibility issue you pointed out using the Lighthouse (within the Google Chrome DevTools) and also by using the WAVE Evaluation Tool extension . However, I could not replicate the same within the "Social Profiles"; see the screenshot attached for your reference.

Can you share more details on how you have replicated this with detailed steps? Also, as you are using an older version of the Yoast SEO plugin, 24.9, we recommend you use the latest version, which is 25.1, for testing.