Question: Let's say you are navigating a list, grid or dropdown with the keyboard arrows. Pressing the arrows changes the temporarily "selected" item, and pressing enter **selects** it (a bit like the element on a webpage). Since the action of selecting the item is confirming your choice, navigating the list can't also be called "selecting".

What is the terminology for navigating and changing the state of the temporarily "selected" item without changing or saving the value? I'm struggling to find a concise term to explain the action of navigating the list. "Navigate with the arrow keys" doesn't seem like the right word and doesn't seem to be very well understood, and "Change the temporarily selected item with the arrow key" is way too long.

Answer: 
When the user navigates to an item on the dropdown list, that item is 'active' or 'in focus.'

Personally, I prefer 'in focus' when talking about tabbing through an interface or using the arrow keys, because it most accurately describes the visual feedback in the UI.

Microsoft calls this 'input focus' in their UI glossary: <https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb226821(v=vs.85).aspx>
Since it's a bit like using the mouse to move the cursor to the intended item (and maybe your UI would highlight the item which is currently hovered over) and clicking it to confirm your selection, I would like to suggest something along the lines of

> 
> Move the cursor with the arrow keys
> 
> 
> 

I'm not sure if there's a widely understood term for this.