Tap targets are not sized appropriately
Tap targets are the areas of a web page that users on touch devices can interact with. Buttons, links, and form elements all have tap targets.
Many search engines rank pages based on how mobile-friendly they are. Making sure tap targets are big enough and far enough apart from each other makes your page more mobile-friendly and accessible.
How the Lighthouse tap targets audit fails #
Lighthouse flags pages with tap targets that are too small or too close together:
Targets that are smaller than 48 px by 48 px or closer than 8 px apart fail the audit. When the audit fails, Lighthouse lists the results in a table with three columns:
| Tap Target | The tap target that is inappropriately sized. |
| Size | The size of the target's bounding rectangle in pixels. |
| Overlapping Target | Which other tap targets, if any, are too close. |
Each SEO audit is weighted equally in the Lighthouse SEO Score, except for the manual Structured data is valid audit. Learn more in the Lighthouse Scoring Guide.
How to fix your tap targets #
Step 1: Increase the size of tap targets that are too small. Tap targets that are 48 px by 48 px never fail the audit. If you have elements that shouldn't appear any bigger (for example, icons), try increasing the padding property:
padding to make tap targets bigger without changing the appearance of an element.Step 2: Increase the spacing between tap targets that are too close together using properties like margin. There should be at least 8 px between tap targets.
Resources #
- Accessible tap targets: more information on how to ensure your tap targets are accessible by all users.
- Source code for Tap targets are not sized appropriately audit