What exactly can aria-label be used on?
I have found documentation that shows it can be used on interactive items (such as <button> for example), but can it be used on any of the following:
<p>, <span>, <li> or <abbr>?
I am trying to have particular words and abbreviations within a paragraph, read out as something specific (eg: Aussies read out as "Ozzies" instead of "Ossies" or "NSW" read out as "New South Wales")
Testing in Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox (all Windows 10) and iPhone Safari (iOS)
You should generally not use aria-label on static content. It's only intended to be used on interactive elements and some sectioning elements.
https://www.w3.org/TR/using-aria/#practical-support-aria-label-aria-labelledby-and-aria-describedby
aria-labelledby and aria-describedby are robustly supported for interactive content elements such as links and form controls including
the many input types.
For most assistive technology it's fine to use aria-label or aria-labelledby on the <nav>, and <main> elements but not on
<footer>, <section>, <article>, or <header> .
There is mixed support for aria-label or aria-labelledby on <aside>.
Talkback on Android overrides the content of all landmarks with aria-label or aria-labelledby.
Its fine to use aria-label or aria-labelledby on div elements with role=navigation, role=search, role=main, JAWS doesn't
support them on role=banner, role=complementary,
role=contentinfo. NVDA, VoiceOver, and Talkback are OK
aria-label, aria-labelledby and aria-describedby work well on table, th and td elements with a few exceptions for NVDA,
VoiceOver on iOS, and Talkback discussed in next section.
Don't use aria-label or aria-labelledby on any heading elements because it overrides them on NVDA, VoiceOver and Talkback. JAWS
ignores them.
Don't use aria-label or aria-labelledby on any other non-interactive content such as p, legend, li, or ul, because
it is ignored.
Don't use aria-label or aria-labelledby on a span or div unless its given a role. When aria-label or aria-labelledby are
on interactive roles (such as a link or button) or an img role, they
override the contents of the div or span. Other roles besides
Landmarks (discussed above) are ignored.
Keep in mind that the above guidance was written in 2018, and support has likely improved among some browsers, but the advice above is still safe, and I would recommend mostly following it.
Thanks to brennanyoung for passing along this great article from Steve Faulkner:
https://html5accessibility.com/stuff/2020/11/07/not-so-short-note-on-aria-label-usage-big-table-edition/
It's worth mentioning that the above test results are more recent than the advice given by W3C at the beginning of my post, and it does contradict the W3C advice in some places.
Additional Resources:
http://www.davidmacd.com/blog/does-aria-override-static-backup.html
https://a11ysupport.io/tech/aria/aria-label_attribute
Attributes aria-label and aria-labelledby are typically used and correctly recognized only on interactive elements such a buttons, form fields, links, etc.
They usually don't work, i.e. not read or shown, when they are used on non-interactive elements such as <p>, <div>, <li>.
You can use aria-label or aria-labelledby on a <p>, <li>, but it will work only if it's interactive.
The definition of interactive is quite simple: it means something you can interact with. More technically, it basically means focusable.
Note that with some browsers and/or screen readers, aria-label on elements that aren't naturally focusable may only work when navigating in form mode but not in browse mode.
BY naturally focusable, I mean elements that don't need an explicit tabindex to be interactive.
The element <abbr> is a special case. The expanded meaning must be present in the title attribute and not aria-label.
It's most likely an attribute to help people with disabilities and the elderly. (e.g. screen readers) attach a label to an otherwise anonymous HTML element.
Usually search input field does not have visual label (thanks to designers). aria-label can be used to communicate the label of control to screen reader users.
When user focus on both button(by pressing tab) with area label — you can hear focusing on first x button — will tell you only x button but in case of second x button .. you will hear back to the page button only..
<button title="Close"> X </button>
<button aria-label="Back to the page" title="Close" > X </button>
i hope it helps.
you can read further information here https://www.aditus.io/aria/aria-label/
Related
On my web page, I have a div (shown below), which has text in it that I want to be read by a screen reader.
HTML
<div tabIndex={0}>
"text needs to be read"
</div>
I can hear the text is read without even providing the aria-label. However, I heard "text needs to be read group". I would like to know how can I avoid it saying "group"? I did not put a group role for the div tag.
Another example
This is another example that describes the problem much cleaner
<span class="jw-icon jw-icon-inline jw-button-color jw-reset jw-text-live" tabindex="-1" data-clicked="true">Live</span>
Run the above snippet in any browser. It makes the screen readers to announce it as "Live, group".
Is there any way to mitigate this behaviour. Expected behaviour should be like the screen readers should read it as "Live"
Lots of things going on here.
First of all, all text on a webpage is available to a screen reader and does not need tabindex="0" to make it available to be read. Screen readers provide lots of shortcut keys to navigate to different types of elements (headings, tables, lists, etc). For elements that don't have a direct navigation key, the screen reader user can use the up/down arrow keys to walk the accessibility tree (similar to the DOM).
Secondly, regarding tabindex="0", it should only be set on interactive elements. The tabindex spec says:
authors should only make elements focusable if they act as interactive controls or widgets. In addition, authors should ensure that these focusable elements have an appropriate ARIA role attribute.
And regarding ARIA roles in the second sentence in the spec quote, if your element does receive focus, if it's not a natively focusable element (such as a <a> or <button> or <input>), then it needs to have an appropriate role so that the screen reader user will know how to interact with it.
And related to this, you mentioned aria-label. The aria-label is only honored on elements that have an appropriate role. See "2.10 Practical Support: aria-label, aria-labelledby and aria-describedby".
So given all that, it's a little difficult to answer your question because your simple example is not specific enough. A <div> without a role should not read as "group". Group is usually role="region" (or <section>). The behavior you're hearing may depend on what browser you're using, what screen reader, how you're navigating in with the screen reader (tab or arrow or quicknav key).
Context: Educational ebook (HTML + CSS) publishing
I have a composition title where I have a sentence like this:
<p>This is <del>correct</del> <ins>incorrect</ins></p>
And it is important that the user knows that some text is being deleted and some text is being inserted. I also have a related scenario where text has a highlight applied that has semantic meaning. For instance:
<p>This is an <span class="highlight-blue">adjective</span> and this is a <span class="highlight-red">noun</span>. </p>
I was recommended to use role="region" + aria-label for these situations by an accessibility consultant.
For instance:
<p>This is an <span role="region" aria-label="adjective" class="highlight-blue">adjective</span> and this is a <span role="region" aria-label="noun" class="highlight-red">noun</span>. </p>
The flexibility is necessary here because we are using a standard CSS for all of our titles and sometimes a highlight-red might indicate passive voice or it might indicate a noun, etc.
I have seen in other questions on this site that it is not allowed to use aria-label on span (or div) elements. Also using Chromevox, I have found that the reader will read the aria-label but not the text inside the aria label. (I do not have access to other screen-readers for testing.)
So my question is: What is the best way to have the semantic meaning of these inline elements read to the screen reader user?
Non-viable options
Pseudo-element with CSS hiding. I've seen solutions where you can create a pseudo-element and then hide it offscreen using CSS. When you hide content off-screen, Kindle encounters issues, dropping large chunks of text after the off-screen content, so this is not a viable option.
I would not make the highligting marks a region. That makes them a landmark, which are used to navigate to different areas on the page. The more landmarks you have, the less useful they are (because you'd have to navigate through a bunch of them to get where you want.).
There's a nice article on making highlights and other editing symbols accessible on "Short note on making your mark (more accessible)"
it is not allowed to use aria-label on span (or div) elements
That's not quite accurate. aria-label is a global attribute and can be set on any element. However, the label might be ignored if set on a <div> or <span>. See "2.10 Practical Support: aria-label, aria-labelledby and aria-describedby". In particular, the third last bullet point:
Don't use aria-label or aria-labelledby on a span or div unless its given a role.
So if your <div> or <span> has a role that is appropriate, then the aria-label will be read. But don't assign a role just to get the aria-label read. The role has to make sense.
I have a div defined as below. I want the every text in the div is pronounsed as user tab into this div. In this case,
when user tabs into the outer div, screen reader reads item.X and item.Y (item is a variable).
<div tabindex="0">
<div>{{item.X}}</div>
<div>{{item.Y}}</div>
</div>
I tried to give this div a role="link", and it reads everything, but this div is not a link so I don't think it is the right approach.
<div tabindex="0" role="link">
<div>{{item.X}}</div>
<div>{{item.Y}}</div>
</div>
I also attempted to do the below, but it seems aria-label does not work with Angular Interpolation.
<div tabindex="0" role="link" aria-label="{{item.X}}">
<div>{{item.X}}</div>
<div>{{item.Y}}</div>
</div>
What is the right way to achive my goal?
It's tough to give a complete answer without seeing your real code in context. I assume the sample code is just a simplification but I'll point out the issues in the sample.
Firstly, you have a <div tabindex="0">, which allows the keyboard focus to move to that element but that element doesn't appear to do anything. It's not an interactive element. There's a warning in the html spec for tabindex.
authors should only make elements focusable if they act as interactive controls or widgets
If your <div> does do something (perhaps you have a click handler in javascript), then you'd still have a problem because your <div> does not have any semantic meaning. A screen reader will not know the purpose of the <div>. That's when role comes into play. If you designed your own link instead of using an <a> element, and your custom link was composed of <div> elements, that's when you'd have role="link" on your <div>. The purpose of the role isn't to force all the text to be read. The purpose is to convey to assistive technology (such as a screen reader) what the purpose of that object is.
As far as using aria-label, again, it depends on the semantic meaning of your element. The aria-label is typically ignored on non-semantic elements, such as <div> or <span>. See the W3 spec for "Practical Support: aria-label, aria-labelledby and aria-describedby"
In particular, the third last bullet says:
Don't use aria-label or aria-labelledby on a span or div unless its given a role.
But again, don't give a random role to your <div> just to force the label to be read.
Essentially, you are looking for the "accessible name" to be read. The accessible name calculation is well defined.
See step 2.F and 2.F.ii regarding "name from content" and looping through child elements in the DOM. But this again depends on the role.
So, in your situation, without knowing the purpose of your <div>, it's hard to give specific advice.
Maybe you need to make aria-label parse its value by doing:
[aria-label]="{{item.X}}
or am I mixing things up?
In table cell I have a <span> element, that is styled as image and displays state of interface (Enabled/Disabled/Error), based on it's color.
For users with proper vision, it is compact and understandable. I don't want to change it. But as there is no text in this span, it is not read by screen reader. (understandable, but problem)
What is the correct approach to handle such elements for screen readers?
Expected solution would be to add aria-label with text for screen reader, but, as I found in other topics, "aria-label does not work on <div> nor <span>". As I tested it on JAWS 15, it is true, but in JAWS 18 such labels are being read just fine (why?).
Also I tried to add role="img" to this span, and to add text in aria-label and/or alt and/or title with no result in JAWS 15.
What do you mean by "normal users"? Are you talking about sighted users compared to low-vision users? The latter are normal users too.
For low-vision users, yes, an aria-label is normally the way to go. Thank you for considering accessibility issues.
But you'll also have an issue for color deficient users. Those that can't distinguish between certain colors. Is color the only means for conveying the state of the object? Is there an associated icon too? Color-deficient users won't be using a screen reader so won't benefit from an aria-label.
It's not clear in the html or aria specs on the default role of a <span>. The aria-label should be used in the accessible name calculation and step 2D says only if the element is presentational (meaning role='presentation' or role='none') should the aria-label be ignored. So, if a <span> is considered presentational, then its aria-label will be ignored. JAWS seems to be interpreting it this way but NVDA does not. NVDA in firefox will read the aria-label of a <span>.
So your best choice might be to give the <span> a role, such as role='img' or role='note', so that you can give it an aria-label too, but that will also cause the role of the span to be announced.
Or as one commented above, use a real <img> with alt text.
I have a span which serves as a button which is inside a header:
<h3 aria-label="Header Aria Label">
<span tabindex="0" aria-label="Span Aria Label">Button</span>
</h3>
However, whenever I tab to the span, it reads "Header Aria Label". How do I force JAWS to read the aria-label in the span?
First of all, please don't be offended but what you are doing is poor design, at least, accessibility-wise.
A button inside a heading (not a header, BTW, in HTML 5 there is a separate <header> element which is a quite different thing from <h3> you use here) is a bad idea. Really.
But anyway, if you want JAWS to treat your span as a button, either:
Use a native <button> element, or
Use role="button" on your span, otherwise JAWS wouldn't know in any way that this particular span should be treated as a button. But please prefer the first method unless you absolutely have to use a span here. And please, pull it out of your h3, this will be far more accessible.
A span is neither landmark nor interactive content. An aria-label will not be read by a screen reader (and rightly so).
Instead, use a <button> element. That will address your problem, and be more accessible.
I encounter similar issues to this. From my experience it doesn't seem to make any difference whether it's a span, a div or other tag. Even when multiple aria attributes are applied such as role and aria-hidden="false", the aria-label is not always read out. To me, the condition for aria-labels to be read by JAWS seems to be based on some other rule(s). It would be helpful to see the conditional flow of when an aria-label is read by JAWS. I'm guessing only someone with access the the JAWS source code would really be able to answer this. In the meantime I'll keep trying different things to try to get it to work. JAWS finds the element in the DOM, because it can read the inner html (such as reading the word "Button" in the example above). I'm wondering if the decision to read the aria-label is based on it's parent structure, roles and attributes.