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WAI-ARIA

WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a technical specification from the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. It is a set of attributes that you can add to HTML elements to make web content and web applications—especially those with dynamic content and complex user interface controls—more accessible to people with disabilities.

ARIA works by providing extra semantic information to the browser's accessibility tree. This information can then be interpreted by assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to correctly announce the purpose and state of an element to the user.

ARIA is built on three main components: Roles, States, and Properties.

WAI-ARIA works by adding a set of special attributes to HTML elements. These attributes do not change the visual appearance or the functionality of the element in the browser. Instead, they provide crucial information to the browser's "accessibility tree," which is the source of information for assistive technologies

The three main components of WAI-ARIA are:

  • Roles
  • Properties
  • States

WCAG x WAI-ARIA​

WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) tells you what you need to achieve for accessibility (e.g., "all interactive controls must have a name and role"). WAI-ARIA gives you a way how to achieve it, especially when standard HTML elements are not sufficient for the job.