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Missing aria-flowto ID

Silktide checks every aria-flowto attribute on your pages and verifies that the element IDs it lists actually exist. This attribute offers assistive technology an alternative that differs from the order of the page's code.

<!-- Problem: no element on the page has id="next-section" -->
<div id="intro" aria-flowto="next-section">…</div>

Why this matters

The aria-flowto attribute suggests where a reader should go next, overriding the natural order of the page. A that follows the suggestion and finds nothing there dead-ends the user's path through the content. The attribute is rare, so a broken reference usually means content was restructured and the alternative reading order was forgotten - leaving a trap for exactly the users the attribute was meant to help.

How to fix it

  1. Make each ID listed in aria-flowto match the id of a real element on the same page.
  2. Reconsider whether you need the attribute at all. Most pages should read correctly in their natural code order; fixing that order is more robust than overriding it, and support for aria-flowto is limited.

How Silktide tests this

  1. Find every element on the page with an aria-flowto attribute.
  2. Check each ID it references against the element IDs present on the page.
  3. Report each reference that matches no element.

Troubleshooting

This check reports nothing even though I expect findings

ARIA testing can be turned off per website. Check the advanced settings for the website.

Learn more

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