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>
I would call this keyboard navigation or tabbed navigation (if the below is done)

One suggestion I would make is to keep it consistent with the WCAG recommendations for navigating through the grid.

Thoughts?