How do we make an interactive website work without a mouse?

An accessible interactive website lets people reach, understand and operate every control with a keyboard or another non-mouse input method. Native browser elements are often the safest starting point because browsers already support keyboard operation for controls such as dropdown selections. Custom controls can still be used, but they need careful attention: users must be able to operate them by keyboard and screen readers must be able to recognise them.

Mouse access is only one way to navigate a technical content experience. Visitors may use keyboards, touch devices, screen readers or other assistive technologies, and the same information must remain available across those routes. Keyboard navigation is therefore not a later accessibility check. It is a core requirement for the information architecture, interaction design and development of an interactive data story, guided journey, calculator or assessment tool.

Interactive content becomes harder to use when movement, timing or complex navigation prevents people from reading, concentrating or choosing their own route. Auto-rotating carousels can be particularly difficult for people who need more time to understand content, including readers using a second language. Slow connections, bright mobile environments and different devices can also affect whether an interactive website remains usable.

Design for adaptation by checking how the experience behaves across browsers, devices, connectivity conditions and input methods. Give users enough contrast to read content, make navigation clear, and avoid assuming that every visitor can use a mouse. Progressive disclosure should reveal detail at a manageable pace, not hide essential information behind interactions that some users cannot operate. Retrofitting inclusion late in a project is difficult when deadlines are tight, so accessible UX needs to shape the experience before build decisions are fixed.

We believe an interactive website should earn every interaction by making complex content clearer without excluding people who use keyboards, screen readers or different devices. A provider should involve development early, understand the limits of custom controls and account for contrast, responsiveness and multiple input methods before visual decisions become expensive to change. We bring designers and developers together from the start rather than separating creative and technical work into silos. On This is IBM, created to celebrate IBM in the UK and Ireland, development input from the beginning helped make inclusion a priority across colour, contrast, devices and input methods. That approach helps prevent accessibility from becoming a late-stage box-ticking exercise.