A naive push-up ejects key information at the top

What it is

To keep the focused field out from under the keyboard, the whole page is pushed up until the field sits against it. The title, the payee, the amount, the validation error that used to live at the top ride out of the viewport with it. People type into a naked field at the bottom and can no longer see whom they are paying, or how much. Push-up eviction is the side effect of the well-meant rule “keep the field visible”: visibility was spent on the wrong patch, and context fell off the top.

Mail’s To line, a payment’s destination account, an OTP hint “sent to 138****” — those are the first facts a push-up drops.

Why it happens

“Scroll the focused field into view” is a platform default. Implementations usually translate the whole scroll container until the field’s lower edge clears the keyboard. The translation is rigid: everything above the field travels at the original spacing, and the top has no priority. The lower the field, the more top is evicted. On a short page the push is a title sent off-screen; on a long page it may park an error — written above the field — just out of sight above the keyboard, so a reddened field is visible and its reason is not.

Field-visible and context-visible are two constraints. One translation cannot satisfy both. To hold both, pin the top strip and scroll only the middle, or copy the context onto an accessory bar above the keyboard.

Where it stops holding

A field that already sits at the top (the one box on a search page) evicts almost nothing; this side effect does not appear. A tall desktop window whose keyboard is not inside the app height rarely pushes. A short comment box over a fullscreen player already hid the top on purpose; the conflict is not the keyboard. A user who scrolls the top away themselves has chosen that; do not confuse it with a system push-up that drops context unasked.

Applying it

• Forms whose top carries the object or the amount — transfer, sign-in, OTP — pin that context strip when the keyboard rises, and scroll only the field region in between.
• Do not write errors only above the field and let them ride away. With the keyboard up, copy them onto a still-visible strip, or write them inside the field.
• Refuse a blanket “whatever field, scroll it flush above the keyboard”. Ask first whether an object identity at the top has to stay.
• How to check: focus the lowest field and see whether payee, amount, title and error are still on screen. A clear field whose object has to be recalled from memory has been evicted by the push-up.

Related

• Same group: F1.10.1 The keyboard occupies the lower half and rewrites every spatial relation · F1.10.2 The field and its submit must be visible together
• Nearby: F1.11 Above the fold and below it · F1.01 Distance between control and object
• Search terms: push-up eviction · scroll into view · keyboard inset