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 as to what it does; a name that contradicts the visible label confuses sighted users of assistive technology 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