---
name: Review cursor
slug: review-cursor
category: accessibility
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: A second cursor a screen reader user can move over the screen to
  read text without moving the system focus, so inspecting a region does not
  disturb the app.
aliases:
  - name: NVDA review cursor
    source: community
  - name: screen review
    source: community
  - name: flat review
    source: community
tags:
  - assistive-tech
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - browse-mode
    - rotor
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: "NVDA User Guide: Review cursor"
    url: https://download.nvaccess.org/documentation/userGuide.html
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: a reader inspects content without leaving the field
---

A [screen reader](/screen-reader) user has more than one cursor. There is the system focus,
the one the application knows about, and there is a review cursor that walks the screen
independently of it. NVDA calls it the review cursor, VoiceOver on macOS reaches the same
idea through the VoiceOver cursor, and Orca and the Android and iOS readers call the flattened
version of it flat review. The point of the second cursor is that reading is not
interaction. A person typing in a message field can send the review cursor up to re-read the
error above the form, out to the status line, or across to a toolbar label, and come back to
find the caret exactly where they left it and the application none the wiser.

That independence is what makes it a design constraint rather than a piece of trivia. Content
that no tab stop ever visits is still read: a timestamp, a helper line, a count in the corner,
the text inside an [inert](/inert) region that has been made unreachable for interaction but is
still painted on the screen. So text on screen is text somebody can find, which cuts both
ways. It rescues information you forgot to make reachable, and it exposes leftovers you thought
were invisible because nothing could focus them.

Three neighbouring words get swapped for each other and they name three different things.
[Browse mode](/browse-mode) is the reading mode itself, where the reader takes the keyboard
and moves through a document with single keys instead of operating controls. The
[rotor](/rotor) is the dial that chooses what kind of element the next gesture visits, headings
or links or form controls. A review cursor is neither a mode nor a filter: it is a second
pointer that reads whatever is under it without telling the application anything happened.

The practical consequence is that a screenshot is not the boundary of your interface for a
screen reader user, and neither is the tab order. If a label only makes sense next to the
control it belongs to, someone will read it on its own. If a status only makes sense as an
update, someone will find it a minute later sitting there as plain text. Writing every string
so it survives being read alone is the same discipline that makes a good
[accessible name](/accessible-name), applied to the parts nobody bothers to name.