An exciting accessibility change is coming to Chrome 50. Google calls it “focus starting point” and it’s a small—but incredibly helpful—change to how their Web browser manages focused elements and tab order.
If something has focus, it’s also the focus navigation start point, just like before. Also, just like before, if nothing else has set the focus navigation start point, then it will be the current document or, if available and supported, the currently active dialog. If we navigate to a page fragment like in the example above, that will now set the focus start point. Also, if we click any element on the page, regardless of whether it is focusable, that will now set the focus navigation start point. Finally, if the element which was the focus start point is removed from the DOM, its parent becomes the focus start point. No more focus whack-a-mole!
As the article explains, prior to this change, focus management can be difficult when tabbing around and moving within a document (or into and out of modal dialog boxes). Take heed of the note in the article’s caveats section:
Sequential focus navigation starting point is currently only supported in Chrome 50, Firefox, and Opera. Until it is supported in all browsers you’ll still need to add tabindex="-1" (and remove the focus outline) to your named anchor targets.