Developer fixes broken focus management in a modal that claimed to be accessible

A developer identified and resolved a critical accessibility flaw in a custom modal used in The Comfort Table, an interactive food editorial web project. The modal had declared itself accessible using ARIA attributes like role='dialog' and aria-modal='true', but its focus management behavior did not match those semantics. Key issues included focus not moving into the dialog on open, keyboard navigation escaping the modal boundary, and focus not returning to the triggering element on close. The fix implemented a complete modal lifecycle: moving focus inside on open, trapping Tab and Shift+Tab within the dialog, supporting Escape to dismiss, and restoring focus to the invoking element. The developer emphasized that ARIA attributes should describe real behavior rather than serve as a substitute for it.