I saw the documentation for ARIA 'role' but couldn't understand it. What exactly does it do? Say, I use it in a table like this:
<td role='button'>text</td>
does it mean that this cell will act like a button? Can someone explain this in simpler terms?
You can refer the MDN which says:
The button role should be used for clickable elements that trigger a
response when activated by the user. On its own, role="button" can
make any element (e.g. <p>, <span> or <div>) appears as a button
control to a screen reader. Additionally, this role can be used in
combination with the aria-pressed attribute in order to create toggle
buttons.
Also see the note
Where possible, it is recommended to use native HTML buttons
(<button>, <input type="button" /> and <input type="image" />) rather
than the button role, as native HTML buttons are more widely supported
by older user agents and assistive technology. Native HTML buttons
also support keyboard and focus requirements by default, without need
for additional customization.
The w3.org also has a detailed explanation of aria-role
As stated, ARIA is for accessibility and the role attribute won't have an effect on normal browsers.
One of the most simple and functional ways to implement ARIA roles is the use of Landmarks. Some ARIA roles are Landmarks, which allow users to jump to specific parts of the page in screen readers. Some blind users find this helpful as it helps them navigate quickly. Support and behaviour in different screen readers is described here.
Related
I am creating a search form that has two elements an input field and a button. The input field does not have an label associated with it.
To make the field more accessible I can add <label for="searchfield">Search</label> and visually hide it so it will e.g. be accessible for screenreaders.
I could also add aria-label="search" to the input field and leave the input field without an label.
I have tested with "Voice Over" on a Mac and I get the same result/output. My question is are these approaches equivalent? Or is one approach better than the other one?
Here is a pen.
In the absence of having any knowledge of the site (how are other form fields labeled?) or the audience (what is their skill level or tech profile?), I approach these questions with a couple parameters:
The rules of ARIA (the first rule may apply here)
Progressive enhancement
That being said, I often code a page without ARIA and without CSS (as that may get blocked, chunked, etc) and make sure it is accessible.
That means I code a <label>. Then I visually hide it. If the CSS breaks, all is still well. If the user's screen reader does not support ARIA, all is still well. As an aside, if you think all screen readers of your users support ARIA, I encourage you to do to a tech assessment of users (local blind associations are a good start in the absence of any real users). Many people still run older versions of browsers and SRs.
For sighted users, I make sure I lean on contextual clues, like a clear search icon (or the word) in the button (as Unor references). Or maybe a placeholder with appropriate contrast (though you could use the <label> as a visual placeholder with some CSS trickery to hide it on focus).
If your submit button uses SVG, then I would be folding ARIA into that given the inconsistent support around SVG alternative text methods.
FWIW, I am also not a fan of the title attribute, partly because of inconsistent accessible name calculation and partly because I think it looks meh.
So, to answer your questions:
My question is are these approaches equivalent?
No, but the distance between them is shrinking.
Or is one approach better than the other one?
That depends on context we do not have.
Using aria-label is preferable to relying on CSS to visually hide a label element.
(Related Technique: Using aria-label to provide an invisible label where a visible label cannot be used)
But note that you don’t have to provide a label for a search form that only consists of the search field and the submit button. Assuming that you use a button labeled with something like "Search", it already makes clear which purpose the text field has.
(Related Technique: Using an adjacent button to label the purpose of a field)
In that case, while it doesn’t need a label, it should still get a name. One way to provide a name is to use the title attribute on the input element. The Technique Using the title attribute to identify form controls when the label element cannot be used shows this (a search form without label, with title attribute on input) in example 3.
I believe that aria-label="search" is the correct approach, as it produces cleaner markup (i.e. no unnecessary label tag) and no need for CSS to set visibility of the label - like in this example.
I believe visually hiding a label using CSS is a somewhat 'hacky' way to approach the problem, whereas ARIA is the standard for accessible markup, so it should be the obvious choice for situations like this.
On the other hand, it would be worth ensuring all browsers you intend to support can use ARIA correctly, and if not, it may be worth using the label approach to ensure compatibility across all browsers. Although, I think the support these days is pretty good, so that should not be a common scenario.
I have read that the role attribute was added to Bootstrap for accessibility, and I would like to know how <form role="form"> helps accessibility. See http://getbootstrap.com/css/#forms-example for an example of this specific usage.
I searched Bootstrap's repo for "role" to no avail.
My issue is that the information seems redundant. The notion that the element is a form is already expressed by the HTML tag itself (<form>), so what does it help if we also add that the element is playing the role of form? It would make sense to add role="..." if role was going to be different than form (I don't know what - but let's pretend); as it stands (especially without concrete reasoning / use case examples), it is puzzling at best.
If you add a role="form" to a form, a screen reader sees it as a region on a webpage. That means that a user can easily jump to the form with his/her region quick navigation keys (for example, in JAWS 15 you use R for this). And also, your user will be able to easily find where the form starts and ends because screen readers mark start and end of regions.
I'd like to point out that the article #user664833 mentioned in a comment states that role="form" shouldn't go on <form> elements, but rather on a <div> or some other element which does not semantically indicate that it contains form elements.
The <form> element is probably already handled properly by modern screen readers.
Quote (link):
Recommend using [role="form"] on a semantically neutral element such as a <div> not on a <form> element, as the element already has default role semantics exposed.
In fact, the ARIA 1.1 W3C recommendation states clearly one should not change the host language semantics in section 1.4 (source):
"It is not appropriate to create objects with style and script when
the host language provides a semantic element for that type of object.
While WAI-ARIA can improve the accessibility of these objects,
accessibility is best provided by allowing the user agent to handle
the object natively."
So, writing <form role='form'> is not only redundant but against the recommendation.
Semantically speaking, a form by default is, well, a form. However, not all accessibility applications(screen readers, etc) are designed the same and some can use elements (even the form element) with the role=form attribute differently even if they understand that the parent form element will have the same semantic meaning with or without the role=form attribute.
A few hours ago I read about the aria-label attribute, which:
Defines a string value that labels the current element.
But in my opinion this is what the title attribute was supposed to do. I looked further in the Mozilla Developer Network to get some examples and explanations, but the only thing I found was
<button aria-label="Close" onclick="myDialog.close()">X</button>
Which does not provide me with any label (so I assume I misunderstood the idea). I tried it here in jsfiddle.
So my question is: why do I need aria-label and how should I use it?
It's an attribute designed to help assistive technology (e.g. screen readers) attach a label to an otherwise anonymous HTML element.
So there's the <label> element:
<label for="fmUserName">Your name</label>
<input id="fmUserName">
The <label> explicitly tells the user to type their name into the input box where id="fmUserName".
aria-label does much the same thing, but it's for those cases where it isn't practical or desirable to have a label on screen. Take the MDN example:
<button aria-label="Close" onclick="myDialog.close()">X</button>`
Most people would be able to infer visually that this button will close the dialog. A blind person using assistive technology might just hear "X" read aloud, which doesn't mean much without the visual clues. aria-label explicitly tells them what the button will do.
In the example you give, you're perfectly right, you have to set the title attribute.
If the aria-label is one tool used by assistive technologies (like screen readers), it is not natively supported on browsers and has no effect on them. It won't be of any help to most of the people targetted by the WCAG (except screen reader users), for instance a person with intellectal disabilities.
The "X" is not sufficient enough to give information to the action led by the button (think about someone with no computer knowledge). It might mean "close", "delete", "cancel", "reduce", a strange cross, a doodle, nothing.
Despite the fact that the W3C seems to promote the aria-label rather that the title attribute here: http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20140916/ARIA14 in a similar example, you can see that the technology support does not include standard browsers : http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/Techniques/ua-notes/aria#ARIA14
In fact aria-label, in this exact situation might be used to give more context to an action:
For instance, blind people do not perceive popups like those of us with good vision, it's like a change of context. "Back to the page" will be a more convenient alternative for a screen reader, when "Close" is more significant for someone with no screen reader.
<button
aria-label="Back to the page"
title="Close" onclick="myDialog.close()">X</button>
If you wants to know how aria-label helps you practically .. then follow the steps ... you will get it by your own ..
Create a html page having below code
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<button title="Close"> X </button>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<button aria-label="Back to the page" title="Close" > X </button>
</body>
</html>
Now, you need a virtual screen reader emulator which will run on browser to observe the difference. So, chrome browser users can install chromevox extension and mozilla users can go with fangs screen reader addin
Once done with installation, put headphones in your ears, open the html page and make focus on both button(by pressing tab) one-by-one .. and 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..
i hope you got it well now!!
Prerequisite:
Aria is used to improve the user experience of visually impaired users. Visually impaired users navigate though application using screen reader software like JAWS, NVDA,.. While navigating through the application, screen reader software announces content to users. Aria can be used to add content in the code which helps screen reader users understand role, state, label and purpose of the control
Aria does not change anything visually. (Aria is scared of designers too).
aria-label
aria-label attribute is used to communicate the label to screen reader users. 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
How To Use:
<input type="edit" aria-label="search" placeholder="search">
There is no visual change in application. But screen readers can understand the purpose of control
aria-labelledby
Both aria-label and aria-labelledby is used to communicate the label. But aria-labelledby can be used to reference any label already present in the page whereas aria-label is used to communicate the label which i not displayed visually
Approach 1:
<span id="sd">Search</span>
<input type="text" aria-labelledby="sd">
Approach 2:
aria-labelledby can also be used to combine two labels for screen reader users
<span id="de">Billing Address</span>
<span id="sd">First Name</span>
<input type="text" aria-labelledby="de sd">
The title attribute displays a tooltip when the mouse is hovering the element. While this is a great addition, it doesn't help people who cannot use the mouse (due to mobility disabilities) or people who can't see this tooltip (e.g.: people with visual disabilities or people who use a screen reader).
As such, the mindful approach here would be to serve all users. I would add both title and aria-label attributes (serving different types of users and different types of usage of the web).
Here's a good article that explains aria-label in depth
As a side answer it's worth to note that:
ARIA is commonly used to improve the accessibility for screen readers. (not only but mostly atm.)
Using ARIA does not necessarily make things better! Easily ARIA can lead to significantly worse accessibility if not implemented and tested properly. Don't use ARIA just to have some "cool things in the code" which you don't fully understand. Sadly too often ARIA implementations introduce more issues than solutions in terms of accessibility. This is rather common since sighted users and developers are less likely to put extra effort in extensive testing with screen readers while on the other hand ARIA specs and validators are currently far from perfect and even confusing in some cases. On top of that each browser and screen reader implement the ARIA support non-uniformly causing the major inconsistencies in the behavior. Often it's better idea to avoid ARIA completely when it's not clear exactly what it does, how it behaves and it won't be tested intensively with all screen readers and browsers (or at least the most common combinations). Disclaimer: My intention is not to disgrace ARIA but rather its bad ARIA implementations. In fact it's not so uncommon that HTML5 don't offer any other alternatives where implementing ARIA would bring significant benefits for the accessibility e.g. aria-hidden or aria-expanded. But only if implemented and tested properly!
I believe you should not use it at all unless you know what you are doing and you are going to check how it looks all over aria's supported devices. Don't bring a problem with the excuse of being a solution! 🙃 people with disabilities will thank you
The following HTML is inserted by the jQuery Grid plugin:
<td role="gridcell" style="" aria-describedby="list_createdBy">Sam</td>
What is the meaning of the 'aria-describedby' property?
This is described in the aria specification. It gives the id of an element that provides some additional information about the current element that some users might need.
Here below is an example of how you could use the aria-describedby property. It is used when you have a text that has information about the element. Aria-describedby must be the same as the id of the text that describes it.
First name: <input aria-describedby="name" type="text">
<em id="name">Your first name must be correct.</em>
At the first glance I'd say aria-describedby is likely to be ignored here because it's defined on <td>. Most browsers and screen readers will ignore aria-describedby information when set on element which is not interactive (focusable).
But the specific example a bit more complex due to role="gridcell" which overrides the semantics of <td> and therefore the provided example is valid if it follows the ARIA specification for gridcell. It's a custom component.
Generally speaking the attribute aria-describedby provides the screen reader with the additional information to be announced along the content of the element (not the only but the most common use-case).
For example instead of only "Logout" the screen reader will announce "Logout, John Doe":
Logged-in as <span id="user">John Doe</span>.
<a aria-describedby="user" href="/logout">Logout</a>
Or example with a tooltip (Hint: Javascript part is missing here):
<button type="button" aria-describedby="my-tooltip">Snipping Tool</button>
<div hidden id="my-tooltip" role="tooltip">
It can take still screenshots of an open window,
rectangular areas, a free-form area,
or the entire screen.
</div>
Or example with a form element, another common use-case:
<form ...>
<label for="my-name">Full name</label>
<input aria-describedby="my-name-desc" id="my-name" type="text"/>
<p id="my-name-desc">
Please tell us your full name.
</p>
</form>
The example above will announce both <label> and the additional description (defined by aria-describedby) immediately when a user focuses the input field. Not only that it eliminates a need to read the surroundings to be able to understand what is expected to enter but also reading all elements other than form controls when inside of the <form> might be more complex for a screen reader user. It's a different experience then reading the rest of the page. Because keyboard events can either interact with screen readers or with form controls, but hardly with both in the same time. Not to mention that screen readers offer bunch of useful keyboard shortcuts for example pressing "H" will jump to a next heading but obviously not when <input> field is focused. Then "H" will be entered into <input>.
About ARIA:
ARIA is commonly used to improve the accessibility for screen readers (not only but mostly atm.).
Using ARIA does not necessarily make things better! Easily ARIA can lead to significantly worse accessibility if not implemented and tested properly. Don't use ARIA just to have some "cool things in the code" which you don't fully understand. Sadly too often ARIA implementations introduce more issues than solutions in terms of accessibility. This is rather common since sighted users and developers are less likely to put extra effort in extensive testing with screen readers while on the other hand ARIA specs and validators are currently far from perfect and even confusing in some cases. On top of that each browser and screen reader implement the ARIA support non-uniformly causing the major inconsistencies in the behavior. Often it's better idea to avoid ARIA completely when it's not clear exactly what it does, how it behaves and it won't be tested intensively with all screen readers and browsers (or at least the most common combinations). Disclaimer: My intention is not to disgrace ARIA but rather its bad ARIA implementations. In fact it's not so uncommon that HTML5 don't offer any other alternatives where implementing ARIA would bring significant benefits for the accessibility e.g. aria-hidden or aria-expanded. But only if implemented and tested properly!
About aria-describedby
Provides the additional information along the content of the element
Works as expected on focusable elements (e.g. button, input, a). Mostly useless on other elements ("mostly" there are exceptions)
IE 11 is a bit tricky. Sometimes it's ignored. It might make a difference if implemented on a or button as well if referenced element is hidden (display:none), its position (is the inner element referenced?) or if it has tabindex="-1" or role (e.g. role="none") on it etc. Make sure to test all screen readers
Might behave differently if a screen reader is used in a focus mode (TAB key) or virtual mode (reading the content with ARROW keys)
Both Firefox and Internet Explorer respect aria-describedby only in focus mode. As such, it does not make sense to add it to non-focusable elements. From: ADG
While NVDA announces descriptions right away, JAWS sometimes prompts to manually press JAWS+Alt+R to announce it. From: ADG
If referenced element is hidden it's not searchable with Ctrl+F (which is a common way the users like to navigate the website to quickly find what they look for). From: ADG
The only case where we truly recommend the usage of aria-describedby, is to attach additional information to interactive elements (e.g. to relate visible information e.g. to form controls). From: ADG
Good idea: Using combination of aria-describedby (on a form control) and role="alert" (on a SPAN) for a form control error. From: W3.org
Basically,
aria-describedby property is used to attach descriptive information to one or more HTML tags through the use of an id reference list( an id reference list contains one or more unique HTML tag ids).
aria-describedby property is very similar to aria-labelledby property( a label which describes the essence of a HTML tag) but aria-describedby property provides more information about a HTML tag that user might need.
The properties aria-describedby and aria-labelledby are mainly useful to the users who use assistive technologies like a screen reader.
For reference:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/ARIA_Techniques/Using_the_aria-describedby_attribute
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/ARIA1.html
What is HTML5 ARIA? I do not understand how to implement it.
WAI-ARIA is a spec defining support for accessible web apps. It defines bunch of markup extensions (mostly as attributes on HTML5 elements), which can be used by the web app developer to provide additional information about the semantics of the various elements to assistive technologies like screen readers. Of course, for ARIA to work, the HTTP user agent that interprets the markup needs to support ARIA, but the spec is created in such a way, as to allow down-level user agents to ignore the ARIA-specific markup safely without affecting the web app's functionality.
Here's an example from the ARIA spec:
<ul role="menubar">
<!-- Rule 2A: "File" label via aria-labelledby -->
<li role="menuitem" aria-haspopup="true" aria-labelledby="fileLabel"><span id="fileLabel">File</span>
<ul role="menu">
<!-- Rule 2C: "New" label via Namefrom:contents -->
<li role="menuitem" aria-haspopup="false">New</li>
<li role="menuitem" aria-haspopup="false">Open…</li>
...
</ul>
</li>
...
</ul>
Note the role attribute on the outer <ul> element. This attribute does not affect in any way how the markup is rendered on the screen by the browser; however, browsers that support ARIA will add OS-specific accessibility information to the rendered UI element, so that the screen reader can interpret it as a menu and read it aloud with enough context for the end-user to understand (for example, an explicit "menu" audio hint) and is able to interact with it (for example, voice navigation).
ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications.
WAI-ARIA is an incredibly powerful technology that allows developers to easily describe the purpose, state and other functionality of visually rich user interfaces - in a way that can be understood by Assistive Technology. WAI-ARIA has finally been integrated into the current working draft of the HTML 5 specification.
And if you are wondering what WAI-ARIA is, its the same thing.
Please note the terms WAI-ARIA and ARIA refer to the same thing. However, it is more correct to use WAI-ARIA to acknowledge its origins in WAI.
WAI = Web Accessibility Initiative
From the looks of it, ARIA is used for assistive technologies and mostly screen reading.
Most of your doubts will be cleared if you read this article
http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-in-html/
What is it?
WAI-ARIA stands for “Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet Applications”. It is a set of attributes to help enhance the semantics of a web site or web application to help assistive technologies, such as screen readers for the blind, make sense of certain things that are not native to HTML. The information exposed can range from something as simple as telling a screen reader that activating a link or button just showed or hid more items, to widgets as complex as whole menu systems or hierarchical tree views.
This is achieved by applying roles and state attributes to HTML 4.01 or later markup that has no bearing on layout or browser functionality, but provides additional information for assistive technologies.
One corner stone of WAI-ARIA is the role attribute. It tells the browser to tell the assistive technology that the HTML element used is not actually what the element name suggests, but something else. While it originally is only a div element, this div element may be the container to a list of auto-complete items, in which case a role of “listbox” would be appropriate to use. Likewise, another div that is a child of that container div, and which contains a single option item, should then get a role of “option”. Two divs, but through the roles, totally different meaning. The roles are modeled after commonly used desktop application counterparts.
An exception to this are document landmark roles, which don’t change the actual meaning of the element in question, but provide information about this particular place in a document.
The second corner stone are WAI-ARIA states and properties. They define the state of certain native or WAI-ARIA elements such as if something is collapsed or expanded, a form element is required, something has a popup menu attached to it or the like. These are often dynamic and change their values throughout the lifecycle of a web application, and are usually manipulated via JavaScript.
What is it not?
WAI-ARIA is not intended to influence browser behavior. Unlike a real button element, for example, a div which you pour the role of “button” onto does not give you keyboard focusability, an automatic click handler when Space or Enter are being pressed on it, and other properties that are indiginous to a button. The browser itself does not know that a div with role of “button” is a button, only its accessibility API portion does.
As a consequence, this means that you absolutely have to implement keyboard navigation, focusability and other behavioural patterns known from desktop applications yourself. You can find some Advanced ARIA techniques Here.
When should I not use it?
Yes, that’s correct, this section comes first! Because the first rule of using WAI-ARIA is: Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to! The less WAI-ARIA you have, and the more you can count on using native HTML widgets, the better! There are some more rules to follow, you can check them out here.
What is ARIA?
ARIA emerged as a way to address the accessibility problem of using a markup language intended for documents, HTML, to build user interfaces (UI). HTML includes a great many features to deal with documents (P, h3,UL,TABLE) but only basic UI elements such as A, INPUT and BUTTON. Windows and other operating systems support APIs that allow (Assistive Technology) AT to access the functionality of UI controls. Internet Explorer and other browsers map the native HTML elements to the accessibility API, but the html controls are not as rich as the controls common on desktop operating systems, and are not enough for modern web applications Custom controls can extend html elements to provide the rich UI needed for modern web applications. Before ARIA, the browser had no way to expose this extra richness to the accessibility API or AT. The classic example of this issue is adding a click handler to an image. It creates what appears to be a clickable button to a mouse user, but is still just an image to a keyboard or AT user.
The solution was to create a set of attributes that allow developers to extend HTML with UI semantics. The ARIA term for a group of HTML elements that have custom functionality and use ARIA attributes to map these functions to accessibility APIs is a “Widget. ARIA also provides a means for authors to document the role of content itself, which in turn, allows AT to construct alternate navigation mechanisms for the content that are much easier to use than reading the full text or only iterating over a list of the links.
It is important to remember that in simple cases, it is much preferred to use native HTML controls and style them rather than using ARIA. That is don’t reinvent wheels, or checkboxes, if you don’t have to.
Fortunately, ARIA markup can be added to existing sites without changing the behavior for mainstream users. This greatly reduces the cost of modifying and testing the website or application.
I ran some other question regarding ARIA. But it's content looks more promising for this question. would like to share them
What is ARIA?
If you put effort into making your website accessible to users with a variety of different browsing habits and physical disabilities, you'll likely recognize the role and aria-* attributes. WAI-ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a method of providing ways to define your dynamic web content and applications so that people with disabilities can identify and successfully interact with it. This is done through roles that define the structure of the document or application, or through aria-* attributes defining a widget-role, relationship, state, or property.
ARIA use is recommended in the specifications to make HTML5 applications more accessible. When using semantic HTML5 elements, you should set their corresponding role.
And see this you tube video for ARIA live.