Accessible name

The accessible name is the name of a button, link, or form control as assistive technology announces it - what a screen reader speaks and what speech-recognition software matches voice commands against. It usually comes from the element's visible text, but ARIA attributes like aria-label can override it, which is why the name users hear can differ from the label they see.

Every interactive element needs exactly one accessible name that describes its purpose. A missing name leaves a screen reader announcing only "button" or "link" with no clue what it does; a name that contradicts the visible label confuses sighted assistive-technology users and can break voice control, since commands like "click Search" rely on the accessible name matching what is displayed.

Learn more

• Accessible Name and Description Computation (AccName) 1.2 - the W3C specification defining how names are computed
• Assistive technology
• ARIA