ARIA

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of HTML attributes that describe what interface elements are and what they are doing, for the benefit of assistive technology. An attribute like aria-label="Search" gives an icon-only button a name a screen reader can announce; role="dialog" tells it a popup is a dialog.

ARIA is a W3C standard. It supplements HTML; it does not replace it. The first rule of ARIA is to use a native HTML element when one exists - a real <button> needs no ARIA at all. Used carelessly, ARIA makes accessibility worse, which is why several Silktide checks test that ARIA attributes are valid and consistent with the accessibility tree.

Learn more

• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.2 - the W3C specification
• ARIA Authoring Practices Guide (APG) - patterns for common widgets
• First Rule of ARIA Use - prefer native HTML