Disabled buttons
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Rule · bucket: judgment · severity: note · detector: none · since: v0.1.0
Section: Things to avoid
Group: States and interaction

Forbidden:
  A greyed-out submit button with no indication of what's missing

Instead:
  **Prefer not to disable at all.** Three better options, in order: enable it and validate on submit; remove the action and say why it is unavailable; or keep it at full contrast with a lock icon and explain how to unlock it.

A disabled button gives no feedback on press, usually fails contrast, and is skipped by keyboard focus — so the user cannot reach the element to discover why it is dead.
Where disabling is genuinely right, put a message beside it or a tooltip on it explaining what is needed, and **keep it keyboard-focusable** so assistive technology can reach that explanation. See `P-02`.