frontend-patterns/research/candidates/FocusReturn.md

title	status	maturity	families	scales	admission
Focus Return	draft	hypothesis	quality affordance	L6	research-candidate-only

Focus Return

Context: a modal task temporarily interrupts another keyboard workflow. Closing it can leave users without a meaningful continuation point. Continuity competes with changing document structure and the next task's needs.

Proposed solution: retain the invocation context and choose a meaningful focus location inside the modal. On closing, return focus to the invoker when appropriate; if it disappeared or completion changes the next step, choose a logical surviving target. Define ownership for nested dialogs so an obsolete close callback cannot move focus out of the current task.

Result: interruption has an explicit return path, but dynamic targets need lifecycle handling. Do not steal focus on unrelated background updates or apply modal focus containment to ordinary page regions. This narrow candidate does not claim complete accessibility conformance; labeling, inert background and keyboard behavior remain part of the containing dialog contract.

Evidence: B06 locates APG's modal focus guidance and return exceptions. Generalizing to route transitions requires separate evidence. Alternative: inline interaction when modal interruption adds no value. Defer merging this into a broader accessible interaction pattern until contrasting cases support that scope.

Proposed relation: can support Explicit Reconciliation when comparison uses a modal; reconciliation does not require a modal.

Next test: close nested dialogs, delete the invoking row, and complete a task that creates the next target; verify keyboard and assistive-technology behavior.

Evidence locators: breadth review. All relations are research proposals; no canonical identity or admitted graph edges. The next test is planned, not executed. Known uses of the complete proposed contract have not been verified in this investigation.

Executed partial evidence — 2026-09-26

Boundary experiment X05–X08 runs Radix Dialog 1.1.23. Ordinary return succeeds; removal of the trigger leaves BODY focused unless the application supplies a surviving target. Nested dismissal is timing-sensitive: immediate Escape failed the parent-return obligation in the final recorded immediate run, while a 100 ms settling variant passed. Neither focus arrival nor dialog visibility alone proves dismissal ownership has stabilized. The delay is an experimental variable, not a recommended fix. Root cause and accessibility conformance remain unverified; retain hypothesis maturity and test lifecycle ownership before a stronger claim.