Deprecated ARIA attribute
Silktide checks your pages for ARIA attributes that the standard has deprecated. These attributes remain in the specification only for backward compatibility and should no longer be used.
Why this matters
The deprecated attributes - aria-grabbed and aria-dropeffect, from the
original drag-and-drop design - were never
reliably supported by
, so they give
authors a false sense that a drag-and-drop interaction has been made
accessible when in practice nothing is announced. Leaving them in place hides
the real work: making the interaction operable without a mouse.
How to fix it
- Remove the deprecated attributes.
- Make the drag-and-drop interaction genuinely accessible instead:
- Provide a keyboard alternative for every move, such as "Move up" and "Move down" buttons or a cut-and-paste command pattern.
- Announce the outcome of each move with a
(
aria-live="polite"), so users hear what changed.
<!-- Problem: deprecated, and announces nothing in practice -->
<li draggable="true" aria-grabbed="false">Item one</li>
<!-- Fix: a keyboard-operable alternative -->
<li>Item one <button aria-label="Move Item one up">↑</button></li>
How Silktide tests this
- Find every element on the page that carries at least one
aria-attribute. - Report each use of an attribute deprecated by ARIA 1.1 and later:
aria-grabbedandaria-dropeffect.
Attributes that are invalid rather than deprecated are reported by Prohibited ARIA attribute.
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.