Breadcrumb Example

Important Note About Use of This Example

Note: This is an illustrative example of one way of using ARIA that conforms with the ARIA specification.

There may be support gaps in some browser and assistive technology combinations, especially for mobile/touch devices. Testing code based on this example with assistive technologies is essential before considering use in production systems.
The ARIA and Assistive Technologies Project is developing measurements of assistive technology support for APG examples.
Robust accessibility can be further optimized by choosing implementation patterns that maximize use of semantic HTML and heeding the warning that No ARIA is better than Bad ARIA.

The following example demonstrates the breadcrumb design pattern.

Example

Accessibility Features

The set of links is structured using an ordered list .
A nav element labeled Breadcrumb identifies the structure as a breadcrumb trail and makes it a navigation landmark so that it is easy to locate.
To prevent screen reader announcement of the visual separators between links, they are added via CSS:
- The separators are part of the visual presentation that signifies the breadcrumb trail, which is already semantically represented by the nav element with its label of Breadcrumb. So, using a display technique that is not represented in the accessibility tree used by screen readers prevents redundant and potentially distracting verbosity.
- Each link has a border on one side that is skewed with the CSS’ transform property so it resembles a slash.

Keyboard Support

No keyboard interaction needed.

Role, Property, State, and Tabindex Attributes

Role	Attribute	Element	Usage
	`aria-label=Breadcrumb`	`nav`	Provides a label that describes the type of navigation provided in the `nav` element.
	`aria-current=page`	`a`	Applied to the last link in the set to indicate that it represents the current page.

Javascript and CSS Source Code

CSS: breadcrumb.css

HTML Source Code

<nav aria-label="Breadcrumb" class="breadcrumb">
  <ol>
    <li>
      <a href="../../">
        WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices
      </a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a href="../../#aria_ex">
        Design Patterns
      </a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a href="../../#breadcrumb">
        Breadcrumb Pattern
      </a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <a href="./index.html" aria-current="page">
        Breadcrumb Example
      </a>
    </li>
  </ol>
</nav>