Example

Accordion Example: demonstrates a form divided into three sections using an accordion to show one section at a time.

Keyboard Interaction

• Enter or Space:
  • When focus is on the accordion header for a collapsed panel, expands the associated panel. If the implementation allows only one panel to be expanded, and if another panel is expanded, collapses that panel.
  • When focus is on the accordion header for an expanded panel, collapses the panel if the implementation supports collapsing. Some implementations require one panel to be expanded at all times and allow only one panel to be expanded; so, they do not support a collapse function.
• Down Arrow (Optional): If focus is on an accordion header, moves focus to the next accordion header. If focus is on the last accordion header, either does nothing or moves focus to the first accordion header.
• Up Arrow (Optional): If focus is on an accordion header, moves focus to the previous accordion header. If focus is on the first accordion header, either does nothing or moves focus to the last accordion header.
• Home (Optional): When focus is on an accordion header, moves focus to the first accordion header.
• End (Optional): When focus is on an accordion header, moves focus to the last accordion header.
• Control + Page Down (Optional): If focus is inside an accordion panel or on an accordion header, moves focus to the next accordion header. If focus is in the last accordion header or panel, either does nothing or moves focus to the first accordion header.
• Control + Page Up (Optional): If focus is inside an accordion panel, moves focus to the header for that panel. If focus is on an accordion header, moves focus to the previous accordion header. If focus is on the first accordion header, either does nothing or moves focus to the last accordion header.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties:

• The title of each accordion header is contained in an element with role button.
• Each accordion header button is wrapped in an element with role heading that has a value set for aria-level that is appropriate for the information architecture of the page.
  • If the native host language has an element with an implicit heading and aria-level, such as an HTML heading tag, a native host language element may be used.
  • The button element is the only element inside the heading element. That is, if there are other visually persistent elements, they are not included inside the heading element.
• If the accordion panel associated with an accordion header is visible, the header button element has aria-expanded set to true. If the panel is not visible, aria-expanded is set to false.
• The accordion header button element has aria-controls set to the ID of the element containing the accordion panel content.
• If the accordion panel associated with an accordion header is visible, and if the accordion does not permit the panel to be collapsed, the header button element has aria-disabled set to true.
• Optionally, each element that serves as a container for panel content has role region and aria-labelledby with a value that refers to the button that controls display of the panel.
  • Avoid using the region role in circumstances that create landmark region proliferation, e.g., in an accordion that contains more than approximately 6 panels that can be expanded at the same time.
  • Role region is especially helpful to the perception of structure by screen reader users when panels contain heading elements or a nested accordion.

Example

Alert Example

Keyboard Interaction

An alert (WAI-ARIA live region) does not require any keyboard interaction.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

The widget has a role of alert.

Example

Alert Dialog Example: A confirmation prompt that demonstrates an alert dialog.

Keyboard Interaction

See the keyboard interaction section for the modal dialog pattern.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that contains all elements of the dialog, including the alert message and any dialog buttons, has role alertdialog.
• The element with role alertdialog has either:
  • A value for aria-labelledby that refers to the element containing the title of the dialog if the dialog has a visible title.
  • A value for aria-label if the dialog does not have a visible title.
• The element with role alertdialog has a value set for aria-describedby that refers to the element containing the alert message.

Example

Breadcrumb design pattern example

Keyboard Interaction

Not applicable.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• Breadcrumb trail is contained within a navigation landmark region.
• The landmark region is labeled via aria-label or aria-labelledby.
• The link to the current page has aria-current set to page. If the element representing the current page is not a link, aria-current is optional.

Examples

Button Examples: Examples of clickable HTML div and span elements made into accessible command and toggle buttons.

Button Examples (IDL): Examples of clickable HTML div and span elements made into accessible command and toggle buttons. This example uses the IDL Interface.

Keyboard Interaction

When the button has focus:

• Space: Activates the button.
• Enter: Activates the button.
• Following button activation, focus is set depending on the type of action the button performs. For example:
  • If activating the button opens a dialog, the focus moves inside the dialog. (see dialog pattern)
  • If activating the button closes a dialog, focus typically returns to the button that opened the dialog unless the function performed in the dialog context logically leads to a different element. For example, activating a cancel button in a dialog returns focus to the button that opened the dialog. However, if the dialog were confirming the action of deleting the page from which it was opened, the focus would logically move to a new context.
  • If activating the button does not dismiss the current context, then focus typically remains on the button after activation, e.g., an Apply or Recalculate button.
  • If the button action indicates a context change, such as move to next step in a wizard or add another search criteria, then it is often appropriate to move focus to the starting point for that action.
  • If the button is activated with a shortcut key, the focus usually remains in the context from which the shortcut key was activated. For example, if Alt + U were assigned to an "Up" button that moves the currently focused item in a list one position higher in the list, pressing Alt + U when the focus is in the list would not move the focus from the list.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The button has role of button.
• The button has an accessible label. By default, the accessible name is computed from any text content inside the button element. However, it can also be provided with aria-labelledby or aria-label.
• If a description of the button's function is present, the button element has aria-describedby set to the ID of the element containing the description.
• When the action associated with a button is unavailable, the button has aria-disabled set to true.
• If the button is a toggle button, it has an aria-pressed state. When the button is toggled on, the value of this state is true, and when toggled off, the state is false.

Examples

• Simple Two-State Checkbox Example: Demonstrates a simple 2-state checkbox.
• Tri-State Checkbox Example: Demonstrates how to make a widget that uses the mixed value for aria-checked and group collection of checkboxes with a field set.

Keyboard Interaction

When the checkbox has focus, pressing the Space key changes the state of the checkbox.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The checkbox has role checkbox.
• The checkbox has an accessible label provided by one of the following:
  • Visible text content contained within the element with role checkbox.
  • A visible label referenced by the value of aria-labelledby set on the element with role checkbox.
  • aria-label set on the element with role checkbox.
• When checked, the checkbox element has state aria-checked set to true.
• When not checked, it has state aria-checked set to false.
• When partially checked, it has state aria-checked set to mixed.
• If a set of checkboxes is presented as a logical group with a visible label, the checkboxes are included in an element with role group that has the property aria-labelledby set to the ID of the element containing the label.
• If the presentation includes additional descriptive static text relevant to a checkbox or checkbox group, the checkbox or checkbox group has the property aria-describedby set to the ID of the element containing the description.

Examples

• Examples of ARIA 1.1 Combobox with Listbox Popup: Comboboxes that demonstrate the various forms of autocomplete behavior using a listbox popup and use the ARIA 1.1 implementation pattern.
• Example of ARIA 1.1 Combobox with Grid Popup: A combobox that presents suggestions in a grid, enabling users to navigate descriptive information about each suggestion.
• ARIA 1.0 Combobox with Both List and Inline Autocomplete: A combobox that demonstrates the autocomplete behavior known as list with inline autocomplete and uses the ARIA 1.0 implementation pattern.
• ARIA 1.0 Combobox with List Autocomplete: A combobox that demonstrates the autocomplete behavior known as list with manual selection and uses the ARIA 1.0 implementation pattern.
• ARIA 1.0 Combobox Without Autocomplete: A combo box that demonstrates the behavior associated with aria-autocomplete=none and uses the ARIA 1.0 implementation pattern.

Keyboard Interaction

• Tab: The textbox is in the page Tab sequence.
• Note: The popup indicator icon or button (if present), the popup, and the popup descendants are excluded from the page Tab sequence.

Textbox Keyboard Interaction

When focus is in the textbox:

• Down Arrow: If the popup is available, moves focus into the popup:
  • If the autocomplete behavior automatically selected a suggestion before Down Arrow was pressed, focus is placed on the suggestion following the automatically selected suggestion.
  • Otherwise, places focus on the first focusable element in the popup.
• Up Arrow (Optional): If the popup is available, places focus on the last focusable element in the popup.
• Escape: Dismisses the popup if it is visible. Optionally, clears the textbox.
• Enter: If an autocomplete suggestion is automatically selected, accepts the suggestion either by placing the input cursor at the end of the accepted value in the textbox or by performing a default action on the value. For example, in a messaging application, the default action may be to add the accepted value to a list of message recipients and then clear the textbox so the user can add another recipient.
• Printable Characters: Type characters in the textbox. Note that some implementations may regard certain characters as invalid and prevent their input.
• Standard single line text editing keys appropriate for the device platform (see note below).
• Alt + Down Arrow (Optional): If the popup is available but not displayed, displays the popup without moving focus.
• Alt + Up Arrow (Optional): If the popup is displayed:
  1. If the popup contains focus, returns focus to the textbox.
  2. Closes the popup.

Standard single line text editing keys appropriate for the device platform:

1. include keys for input, cursor movement, selection, and text manipulation.
2. Standard key assignments for editing functions depend on the device operating system.
3. The most robust approach for providing text editing functions is to rely on browsers, which supply them for HTML inputs with type text and for elements with the contenteditable HTML attribute.
4. IMPORTANT: Be sure that JavaScript does not interfere with browser-provided text editing functions by capturing key events for the keys used to perform them.

Listbox Popup Keyboard Interaction

When focus is in a listbox popup:

• Enter: Accepts the focused option in the listbox by closing the popup and placing the accepted value in the textbox with the input cursor at the end of the value.
• Escape: Closes the popup and returns focus to the textbox. Optionally, clears the contents of the textbox.
• Right Arrow: Returns focus to the textbox without closing the popup and moves the input cursor one character to the right. If the input cursor is on the right-most character, the cursor does not move.
• Left Arrow: Returns focus to the textbox without closing the popup and moves the input cursor one character to the left. If the input cursor is on the left-most character, the cursor does not move.
• Any printable character: Returns the focus to the textbox without closing the popup and types the character.
• Backspace (Optional): Returns focus to the textbox and deletes the character prior to the cursor.
• Delete (Optional): Returns focus to the textbox, removes the selected state if a suggestion was selected, and removes the inline autocomplete string if present.
• Down Arrow: Moves focus to and selects the next option. If focus is on the last option, either returns focus to the textbox or does nothing.
• Up Arrow: Moves focus to and selects the previous option. If focus is on the first option, either returns focus to the textbox or does nothing.
• Home (Optional): Either moves focus to and selects the first option or returns focus to the textbox and places the cursor on the first character.
• End (Optional): Either moves focus to the last option or returns focus to the textbox and places the cursor after the last character.

1. DOM Focus is maintained on the combobox textbox and the assistive technology focus is moved within the listbox using aria-activedescendant as described in Managing Focus in Composites Using aria-activedescendant.
2. Selection follows focus in the listbox; the listbox allows only one suggested value to be selected at a time for the textbox value.

Grid Popup Keyboard Interaction

In a grid popup, each suggested value may be represented by either a single cell or an entire row. See notes below for how this aspect of grid design effects the keyboard interaction design and the way that selection moves in response to focus movements.

• Enter: Accepts the currently selected suggested value by closing the popup and placing the selected value in the textbox with the input cursor at the end of the value.
• Escape: Closes the popup and returns focus to the textbox. Optionally, clears the contents of the textbox.
• Any printable character: Returns the focus to the textbox without closing the popup and types the character.
• Backspace (Optional): Returns focus to the textbox and deletes the character prior to the cursor.
• Delete (Optional): Returns focus to the textbox, removes the selected state if a suggestion was selected, and removes the inline autocomplete string if present.
• Right Arrow: Moves focus one cell to the right. Optionally, if focus is on the right-most cell in the row, focus may move to the first cell in the following row. If focus is on the last cell in the grid, either does nothing or returns focus to the textbox.
• Left Arrow: Moves focus one cell to the left. Optionally, if focus is on the left-most cell in the row, focus may move to the last cell in the previous row. If focus is on the first cell in the grid, either does nothing or returns focus to the textbox.
• Down Arrow: Moves focus one cell down. If focus is in the last row of the grid, either does nothing or returns focus to the textbox.
• Up Arrow: Moves focus one cell up. If focus is in the first row of the grid, either does nothing or returns focus to the textbox.
• Page Down (Optional): Moves focus down an author-determined number of rows, typically scrolling so the bottom row in the currently visible set of rows becomes one of the first visible rows. If focus is in the last row of the grid, focus does not move.
• Page Up (Optional): Moves focus up an author-determined number of rows, typically scrolling so the top row in the currently visible set of rows becomes one of the last visible rows. If focus is in the first row of the grid, focus does not move.
• Home (Optional): Either:
  • Moves focus to the first cell in the row that contains focus. Or, if the grid has fewer than three cells per row or multiple suggested values per row, focus may move to the first cell in the grid.
  • Returns focus to the textbox and places the cursor on the first character.
• End (Optional): Either:
  • Moves focus to the last cell in the row that contains focus. Or, if the grid has fewer than three cells per row or multiple suggested values per row, focus may move to the last cell in the grid.
  • Returns focus to the textbox and places the cursor after the last character.
• Control + Home (optional): moves focus to the first row.
• Control + End (Optional): moves focus to the last row.

1. DOM Focus is maintained on the combobox textbox and the assistive technology focus is moved within the grid using aria-activedescendant as described in Managing Focus in Composites Using aria-activedescendant.
2. The grid allows only one suggested value to be selected at a time for the textbox value.
3. In a grid popup, each suggested value may be represented by either a single cell or an entire row. This aspect of design effects focus and selection movement:
   1. If every cell contains a different suggested value:
      • Selection follows focus so that the cell containing focus is selected.
      • Horizontal arrow key navigation typically wraps from one row to another.
      • Vertical arrow key navigation typically wraps from one column to another.
   2. If all cells in a row contain information about the same suggested value:
      • Either the row containing focus is selected or a cell containing a suggested value is selected when any cell in the same row contains focus.
      • Horizontal key navigation may wrap from one row to another.
      • Vertical arrow key navigation does not wrap from one column to another.

Tree Popup Keyboard Interaction

In some implementations of tree popups, some or all parent nodes may serve as suggestion category labels so may not be selectable values. See notes below for how this aspect of the design effects the way selection moves in response to focus movements.

When focus is in a vertically oriented tree popup:

• Enter: Accepts the currently selected suggested value by closing the popup and placing the selected value in the textbox with the input cursor at the end of the value.
• Escape: Closes the popup and returns focus to the textbox. Optionally, clears the contents of the textbox.
• Any printable character: Returns the focus to the textbox without closing the popup and types the character.
• Right arrow:
  • When focus is on a closed node, opens the node; focus and selection do not move.
  • When focus is on a open node, moves focus to the first child node and selects it if it is selectable.
  • When focus is on an end node, does nothing.
• Left arrow:
  • When focus is on an open node, closes the node.
  • When focus is on a child node that is also either an end node or a closed node, moves focus to its parent node and selects it if it is selectable.
  • When focus is on a root node that is also either an end node or a closed node, does nothing.
• Down Arrow: Moves focus to the next node that is focusable without opening or closing a node and selects it if it is selectable.
• Up Arrow: Moves focus to the previous node that is focusable without opening or closing a node and selects it if it is selectable.
• Home: Moves focus to the first node in the tree without opening or closing a node and selects it if it is selectable.
• End: Moves focus to the last node in the tree that is focusable without opening a node and selects it if it is selectable.

1. DOM Focus is maintained on the combobox textbox and the assistive technology focus is moved within the tree using aria-activedescendant as described in Managing Focus in Composites Using aria-activedescendant.
2. The tree allows only one suggested value to be selected at a time for the textbox value.
3. In a tree popup, some or all parent nodes may not be selectable values; they may serve as category labels for suggested values. If focus moves to a node that is not a selectable value, either:
   • The previously selected node, if any, remains selected until focus moves to a node that is selectable.
   • There is no selected value.
   • In either case, focus is visually distinct from selection so users can readily see if a value is selected or not.
4. If the nodes in a tree are arranged horizontally:
   1. Down Arrow performs as Right Arrow is described above, and vice versa.
   2. Up Arrow performs as Left Arrow is described above, and vice versa.

Dialog Popup Keyboard Interaction

When focus is in a dialog popup:

• There are two ways to close the popup and return focus to the textbox:
  1. Perform an action in the dialog, such as activate a button, that specifies a value for the textbox.
  2. Cancel out of the dialog, e.g., press Escape or activate the cancel button in the dialog. Canceling either returns focus to the text box without changing the textbox value or returns focus to the textbox and clears the textbox.
• The dialog implements the keyboard interaction defined in the modal dialog pattern.

Unlike other combobox popups, dialogs do not support aria-activedescendant so DOM focus moves into the dialog from the textbox.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

The role, state, and property guidance where the ARIA 1.1 and ARIA 1.0 patterns differ is listed first. The subsequent guidance applies to both patterns.

• In a combobox implementing the ARIA 1.1 pattern:
  • The element that serves as the combobox container has role combobox.
  • The element with role combobox contains or owns a textbox element that has either role textbox or role searchbox.
  • When the combobox popup is visible, the combobox element contains or owns an element that has role listbox, tree, grid, or dialog.
  • If the combobox popup has a role other than listbox, the element with role combobox has aria-haspopup set to a value that corresponds to the popup type. That is, aria-haspopup is set to grid, tree, or dialog. Note that elements with role combobox have an implicit aria-haspopup value of listbox.
  • When the combobox popup is visible, the textbox element has aria-controls set to a value that refers to the combobox popup element.
• In a combobox implementing the ARIA 1.0 pattern:
  • The element that serves as the textbox has role combobox.
  • When the combobox popup is visible, the element with role combobox has aria-owns set to a value that refers to an element with role listbox.
  • the element with role combobox has a value for aria-haspopup of listbox. Note that elements with role combobox have an implicit aria-haspopup value of listbox.
• The textbox element has a value for aria-multiline of false. Note that the default value of aria-multiline is false.
• When the combobox popup is not visible, the element with role combobox has aria-expanded set to false. When the popup element is visible, aria-expanded is set to true. Note that elements with role combobox have a default value for aria-expanded of false.
• When a combobox receives focus, DOM focus is placed on the textbox element.
• When a descendant of a listbox, grid, or tree popup is focused, DOM focus remains on the textbox and the textbox has aria-activedescendant set to a value that refers to the focused element within the popup.
• In a combobox with a listbox, grid, or tree popup, when a suggested value is visually indicated as the currently selected value, the option, gridcell, row, or treeitem containing that value has aria-selected set to true.
• If the combobox has a visible label, the element with role combobox has aria-labelledby set to a value that refers to the labeling element. Otherwise, the combobox element has a label provided by aria-label.
• The textbox element has aria-autocomplete set to a value that corresponds to its autocomplete behavior:
  • none: When the popup is displayed, the suggested values it contains are the same regardless of the characters typed in the textbox.
  • list: When the popup is triggered, it presents suggested values that complete or logically correspond to the characters typed in the textbox.
  • both: When the popup is triggered, it presents suggested values that complete or logically correspond to the characters typed in the textbox. In addition, the portion of the selected suggestion that has not been typed by the user, known as the completion string, appears inline after the input cursor in the textbox. The inline completion string is visually highlighted and has a selected state.

1. When referring to the roles, states, and properties documentation for the below list of patterns used for popups, keep in mind that a combobox is a single-select widget where selection always follows focus in the popup.
2. The roles, states, and properties for popup elements are defined in their respective design patterns:
   • Listbox Roles, States, and Properties
   • Grid Roles, States, and Properties
   • Tree Roles, States, and Properties
   • Dialog Roles, States, and Properties

Example

Modal Dialog Example

Keyboard Interaction

In the following description, the term tabbable element refers to any element with a tabindex value of zero or greater. Note that values greater than 0 are strongly discouraged.

• When a dialog opens, focus moves to an element inside the dialog. See notes below regarding initial focus placement.
• Tab:
  • Moves focus to the next tabbable element inside the dialog.
  • If focus is on the last tabbable element inside the dialog, moves focus to the first tabbable element inside the dialog.
• Shift + Tab:
  • Moves focus to the previous tabbable element inside the dialog.
  • If focus is on the first tabbable element inside the dialog, moves focus to the last tabbable element inside the dialog.
• Escape: Closes the dialog.

1. When a dialog opens, focus placement depends on the nature and size of the content.
   • In all circumstances, focus moves to an element contained in the dialog.
   • Unless a condition where doing otherwise is advisable, focus is initially set on the first focusable element.
   • If content is large enough that focusing the first interactive element could cause the beginning of content to scroll out of view, it is advisable to add tabindex=-1 to a static element at the top of the dialog, such as the dialog title or first paragraph, and initially focus that element.
   • If a dialog contains the final step in a process that is not easily reversible, such as deleting data or completing a financial transaction, it may be advisable to set focus on the least destructive action, especially if undoing the action is difficult or impossible. The Alert Dialog Pattern is often employed in such circumstances.
   • If a dialog is limited to interactions that either provide additional information or continue processing, it may be advisable to set focus to the element that is likely to be most frequently used, such as an OK or Continue button.
2. When a dialog closes, focus returns to the element that invoked the dialog unless either:
   • The invoking element no longer exists. Then, focus is set on another element that provides logical work flow.
   • The work flow design includes the following conditions that can occasionally make focusing a different element a more logical choice:
     1. It is very unlikely users need to immediately re-invoke the dialog.
     2. The task completed in the dialog is directly related to a subsequent step in the work flow.
     For example, a grid has an associated toolbar with a button for adding rows. the Add Rows button opens a dialog that prompts for the number of rows. After the dialog closes, focus is placed in the first cell of the first new row.
3. It is strongly recommended that the tab sequence of all dialogs include a visible element with role button that closes the dialog, such as a close icon or cancel button.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that serves as the dialog container has a role of dialog.
• All elements required to operate the dialog are descendants of the element that has role dialog.
• The dialog container element has aria-modal set to true.
• The dialog has either:
  • A value set for the aria-labelledby property that refers to a visible dialog title.
  • A label specified by aria-label.
• Optionally, the aria-describedby property is set on the element with the dialog role to indicate which element or elements in the dialog contain content that describes the primary purpose or message of the dialog. Specifying descriptive elements enables screen readers to announce the description along with the dialog title and initially focused element when the dialog opens.

• Because marking a dialog modal by setting aria-modal to true can prevent users of some assistive technologies from perceiving content outside the dialog, users of those technologies will experience severe negative ramifications if a dialog is marked modal but does not behave as a modal for other users. So, mark a dialog modal only when both:
  1. Application code prevents all users from interacting in any way with content outside of it.
  2. Visual styling obscures the content outside of it.
• The aria-modal property introduced by ARIA 1.1 replaces aria-hidden for informing assistive technologies that content outside a dialog is inert. However, in legacy dialog implementations where aria-hidden is used to make content outside a dialog inert for assistive technology users, it is important that:
  1. aria-hidden is set to true on each element containing a portion of the inert layer.
  2. The dialog element is not a descendant of any element that has aria-hidden set to true.

Examples

• Disclosure (Show/Hide) of Image Description
• Disclosure (Show/Hide) of Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

Keyboard Interaction

When the disclosure control has focus:

• Enter: activates the disclosure control and toggles the visibility of the disclosure content.
• Space: activates the disclosure control and toggles the visibility of the disclosure content.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that shows and hides the content has role button.
• When the content is visible, the element with role button has aria-expanded set to true. When the content area is hidden, it is set to false.
• Optionally, the element with role button has a value specified for aria-controls that refers to the element that contains all the content that is shown or hidden.

Example

Example Implementation of Feed Pattern

Keyboard Interaction

The feed pattern is not based on a desktop GUI widget so the feed role is not associated with any well-established keyboard conventions. Supporting the following, or a similar, interface is recommended.

When focus is inside the feed:

• Page Down: Move focus to next article.
• Page Up: Move focus to previous article.
• Control + End: Move focus to the first focusable element after the feed.
• Control + Home: Move focus to the first focusable element before the feed.

1. Due to the lack of convention, providing easily discoverable keyboard interface documentation is especially important.
2. In some cases, a feed may contain a nested feed. For example, an article in a social media feed may contain a feed of comments on that article. To navigate the nested feed, users first move focus inside the nested feed. Options for supporting nested feed navigation include:
   • Users move focus into the nested feed from the content of the containing article with Tab. This may be slow if the article contains a significant number of links, buttons, or other widgets.
   • Provide a key for moving focus from the elements in the containing article to the first item in the nested feed, e.g., Alt + Page Down.
   • To continue reading the outer feed, Control + End moves focus to the next article in the outer feed.
3. In the rare circumstance that a feed article contains a widget that uses the above suggested keys, the feed navigation key will operate the contained widget, and the user needs to move focus to an element that does not utilize the feed navigation keys in order to navigate the feed.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that contains the set of feed articles has role feed.
• If the feed has a visible title, the feed element has aria-labelledby referring to the element containing the title. Otherwise, the feed element has a label specified with aria-label.
• Each unit of content in a feed is contained in an element with role article. All content inside the feed is contained in an article element.
• Each article element has aria-labelledby referring to elements inside the article that can serve as a distinguishing label.
• It is optional but strongly recommended for each article element to have aria-describedby referring to one or more elements inside the article that serve as the primary content of the article.
• Each article element has aria-posinset set to a value that represents its position in the feed.
• Each article element has aria-setsize set to a value that represents either the total number of articles that have been loaded or the total number in the feed, depending on which value is deemed more helpful to users. If the total number in the feed is undetermined, it can be represented by a aria-setsize value of -1.
• When article elements are being added to or removed from the feed container, and if the operation requires multiple DOM operations, the feed element has aria-busy set to true during the update operation. Note that it is extremely important that aria-busy is set to false when the operation is complete or the changes may not become visible to some assistive technology users.

Examples

• Layout Grid Examples: Three example implementations of grids that are used to lay out widgets, including a collection of navigation links, a message recipients list, and a set of search results.
• Data Grid Examples: Three example implementations of grid that include features relevant to presenting tabular information, such as content editing, sort, and column hiding.
• Advanced Data Grid Example: Example of a grid with behaviors and features similar to a typical spreadsheet, including cell and row selection.

Data Grids For Presenting Tabular Information

A grid can be used to present tabular information that has column titles, row titles, or both. The grid pattern is particularly useful if the tabular information is editable or interactive. For example, when data elements are links to more information, rather than presenting them in a static table and including the links in the tab sequence, implementing the grid pattern provides users with intuitive and efficient keyboard navigation of the grid contents as well as a shorter tab sequence for the page. A grid may also offer functions, such as cell content editing, selection, cut, copy, and paste.

In a grid, every cell contains a focusable element or is itself focusable, regardless of whether the cell content is editable or interactive. There is one exception: if column or row header cells do not provide functions, such as sort or filter, they do not need to be focusable. One reason it is important for all cells to be able to receive or contain keyboard focus is that screen readers will typically be in their application reading mode, rather than their document reading mode, when users are interacting with the grid. While in application mode, a screen reader user hears only focusable elements and content that labels focusable elements. So, screen reader users may unknowingly overlook elements contained in a grid that are either not focusable or not used to label a column or row.

Layout Grids for Grouping Widgets

The grid pattern can be used to group a set of interactive elements, such as links, buttons, or checkboxes. Since only one element in the entire grid is included in the tab sequence, grouping with a grid can dramatically reduce the number of tab stops on a page. This is especially valuable if scrolling through a list of elements dynamically loads more of those elements from a large data set, such as in a continuous list of suggested products on a shopping site. If elements in a list like this were in the tab sequence, keyboard users are effectively trapped in the list. If any elements in the group also have associated elements that appear on hover, the grid pattern is also useful for providing keyboard access to those contextual elements of the user interface.

Unlike grids used to present data, A grid used for layout does not necessarily have header cells for labeling rows or columns and might contain only a single row or a single column. Even if it has multiple rows and columns, it may present a single, logically homogenous set of elements. For example, a list of recipients for a message may be a grid where each cell contains a link that represents a recipient. The grid may initially have a single row but then wrap into multiple rows as recipients are added. In such circumstances, grid navigation keys may also wrap so the user can read the list from beginning to end by pressing either Right Arrow or Down Arrow. While This type of focus movement wrapping can be very helpful in a layout grid, it would be disorienting if used in a data grid, especially for users of assistive technologies.

Because arrow keys are used to move focus inside of a grid, a grid is both easier to build and use if the components it contains do not require the arrow keys to operate. If a cell contains an element like a listbox, then an extra key command to focus and activate the listbox is needed as well as a command for restoring the grid navigation functionality. Approaches to supporting this need are described in the section on Editing and Navigating Inside a Cell.

Keyboard Interaction - Setting Focus and Navigating Inside Cells

This section describes two important aspects of keyboard interaction design shared by both data and layout grid patterns:

1. Choosing whether a cell or an element inside a cell receives focus in response to grid navigation key events.
2. Enabling grid navigation keys to be used to interact with elements inside of a cell.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The grid container has role grid.
• Each row container has role row and is either a DOM descendant of or owned by the grid element or an element with role rowgroup.
• Each cell is either a DOM descendant of or owned by a row element and has one of the following roles:
  • columnheader if the cell contains a title or header information for the column.
  • rowheader if the cell contains title or header information for the row.
  • gridcell if the cell does not contain column or row header information.
• If there is an element in the user interface that serves as a label for the grid, aria-labelledby is set on the grid element with a value that refers to the labeling element. Otherwise, a label is specified for the grid element using aria-label.
• If the grid has a caption or description, aria-describedby is set on the grid element with a value referring to the element containing the description.
• If the grid provides sort functions, aria-sort is set to an appropriate value on the header cell element for the sorted column or row as described in the section on grid and table properties.
• If the grid supports selection, when a cell or row is selected, the selected element has aria-selected set true.
• If the grid provides content editing functionality and contains cells that may have edit capabilities disabled in certain conditions, aria-readonly may be set true on cells where editing is disabled. If edit functions are disabled for all cells, aria-readonly may be set true on the grid element. Grids that do not provide editing functions do not include the aria-readonly attribute on any of their elements.
• If there are conditions where some rows or columns are hidden or not present in the DOM, e.g., data is dynamically loaded when scrolling or the grid provides functions for hiding rows or columns, the following properties are applied as described in the section on grid and table properties.
  • aria-colcount or aria-rowcount is set to the total number of columns or rows, respectively.
  • aria-colindex or aria-rowindex is set to the position of a cell within a row or column, respectively.
• If the grid includes cells that span multiple rows or multiple columns, and if the grid role is NOT applied to an HTML table element, then aria-rowspan or aria-colspan is applied as described in grid and table properties.

• If the element with the grid role is an HTML table element, then it is not necessary to use ARIA roles for rows and cells because the HTML elements have implied ARIA semantics. For example, an HTML <TR> has an implied ARIA role of row. A grid built from an HTML table that includes cells that span multiple rows or columns must use HTML rowspan and colspan and must not use aria-rowspan or aria-colspan.
• If rows or cells are included in a grid via aria-owns, they will be presented to assistive technologies after the DOM descendants of the grid element unless the DOM descendants are also included in the aria-owns attribute.

Examples

Link Examples: Link widgets constructed from HTML span and div elements.

Keyboard Interaction

• Enter: Executes the link and moves focus to the link target.
• Shift + F10 (Optional): Opens a context menu for the link.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

The element containing the link text or graphic has role of link.

Examples

• Scrollable Listbox Example: Single-select listbox that scrolls to reveal more options, similar to HTML select with size attribute greater than one.
• Collapsible Dropdown Listbox Example: Single-select collapsible listbox that expands when activated, similar to HTML select with the attribute size="1".
• Example Listboxes with Rearrangeable Options: Examples of both single-select and multi-select listboxes with accompanying toolbars where options can be added, moved, and removed.

Keyboard Interaction

For a vertically oriented listbox:

• When a single-select listbox receives focus:
  • If none of the options are selected before the listbox receives focus, the first option receives focus. Optionally, the first option may be automatically selected.
  • If an option is selected before the listbox receives focus, focus is set on the selected option.
• When a multi-select listbox receives focus:
  • If none of the options are selected before the listbox receives focus, focus is set on the first option and there is no automatic change in the selection state.
  • If one or more options are selected before the listbox receives focus, focus is set on the first option in the list that is selected.
• Down Arrow: Moves focus to the next option. Optionally, in a single-select listbox, selection may also move with focus.
• Up Arrow: Moves focus to the previous option. Optionally, in a single-select listbox, selection may also move with focus.
• Home (Optional): Moves focus to first option. Optionally, in a single-select listbox, selection may also move with focus. Supporting this key is strongly recommended for lists with more than five options.
• End (Optional): Moves focus to last option. Optionally, in a single-select listbox, selection may also move with focus. Supporting this key is strongly recommended for lists with more than five options.
• Type-ahead is recommended for all listboxes, especially those with more than seven options:
  • Type a character: focus moves to the next item with a name that starts with the typed character.
  • Type multiple characters in rapid succession: focus moves to the next item with a name that starts with the string of characters typed.
• Multiple Selection: Authors may implement either of two interaction models to support multiple selection: a recommended model that does not require the user to hold a modifier key, such as Shift or Control, while navigating the list or an alternative model that does require modifier keys to be held while navigating in order to avoid losing selection states.
  • Recommended selection model -- holding modifier keys is not necessary:
    • Space: changes the selection state of the focused option .
    • Shift + Down Arrow (Optional): Moves focus to and toggles the selected state of the next option.
    • Shift + Up Arrow (Optional): Moves focus to and toggles the selected state of the previous option.
    • Shift + Space (Optional): Selects contiguous items from the most recently selected item to the focused item.
    • Control + Shift + Home (Optional): Selects the focused option and all options up to the first option. Optionally, moves focus to the first option.
    • Control + Shift + End (Optional): Selects the focused option and all options down to the last option. Optionally, moves focus to the last option.
    • Control + A (Optional): Selects all options in the list. Optionally, if all options are selected, it may also unselect all options.
  • Alternative selection model -- moving focus without holding a Shift or Control modifier unselects all selected nodes except the focused node:
    • Shift + Down Arrow: Moves focus to and toggles the selection state of the next option.
    • Shift + Up Arrow: Moves focus to and toggles the selection state of the previous option.
    • Control + Down Arrow: Moves focus to the next option without changing its selection state.
    • Control + Up Arrow: Moves focus to the previous option without changing its selection state.
    • Control + Space Changes the selection state of the focused option.
    • Shift + Space (Optional): Selects contiguous items from the most recently selected item to the focused item.
    • Control + Shift + Home (Optional): Selects the focused option and all options up to the first option. Optionally, moves focus to the first option.
    • Control + Shift + End (Optional): Selects the focused option and all options down to the last option. Optionally, moves focus to the last option.
    • Control + A (Optional): Selects all options in the list. Optionally, if all options are selected, it may also unselect all options.

1. DOM focus (the active element) is functionally distinct from the selected state. For more details, see this description of differences between focus and selection.
2. The listbox role supports the aria-activedescendant property, which provides an alternative to moving DOM focus among treeitem elements when implementing keyboard navigation. For details, see Managing Focus in Composites Using aria-activedescendant.
3. In a single-select listbox, moving focus may optionally unselect the previously selected option and select the newly focused option. This model of selection is known as "selection follows focus". Having selection follow focus can be very helpful in some circumstances and can severely degrade accessibility in others. For additional guidance, see Deciding When to Make Selection Automatically Follow Focus.
4. If selecting or unselecting all options is an important function, implementing separate controls for these actions, such as buttons for "Select All" and "Unselect All", significantly improves accessibility.
5. If the options in a listbox are arranged horizontally:
   1. Down Arrow performs as Right Arrow is described above, and vice versa.
   2. Up Arrow performs as Left Arrow is described above, and vice versa.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• An element that contains or owns all the listbox options has role listbox.
• Each option in the listbox has role option and is a DOM descendant of the element with role listbox or is referenced by an aria-owns property on the listbox element.
• If the listbox is not part of another widget, then it has a visible label referenced by aria-labelledby on the element with role listbox.
• In a single-select listbox, the selected option has aria-selected set to true.
• if the listbox supports multiple selection:
  • The element with role listbox has aria-multiselectable set to true.
  • All selected options have aria-selected set to true.
  • All options that are not selected have aria-selected set to false.
• If the complete set of available options is not present in the DOM due to dynamic loading as the user scrolls, their aria-setsize and aria-posinset attributes are set appropriately.
• If options are arranged horizontally, the element with role listbox has aria-orientation set to horizontal. The default value of aria-orientation for listbox is vertical.

Examples

• Navigation Menubar Example: Demonstrates a menubar that provides site navigation.
• Editor Menubar Example: Demonstrates menu radios and menu checkboxes in submenus of a menubar that provides text formatting commands for a text field.

Keyboard Interaction

The following description of keyboard behaviors assumes:

1. A horizontal menubar containing several menuitem elements.
2. All items in the menubar have child submenus that contain multiple vertically arranged items.
3. Some of the menuitem elements in the submenus have child submenus with items that are also vertically arranged.

When reading the following descriptions, also keep in mind that:

1. Focusable elements, which may have role menuitem, menuitemradio, or menuitemcheckbox, are referred to as items.
2. If a behavior applies to only certain types of items, e.g., menuitem elements, the specific role name is used.
3. Submenus, also known as pop-up menus, are elements with role menu.
4. Except where noted, menus opened from a menubutton behave the same as menus opened from a menubar.

• When a menu opens, or when a menubar receives focus, keyboard focus is placed on the first item. All items are focusable as described in .
• Enter:
  • When focus is on a menuitem that has a submenu, opens the submenu and places focus on its first item.
  • Otherwise, activates the item and closes the menu.
• Space:
  • (Optional): When focus is on a menuitemcheckbox, changes the state without closing the menu.
  • (Optional): When focus is on a menuitemradio that is not checked, without closing the menu, checks the focused menuitemradio and unchecks any other checked menuitemradio element in the same group.
  • (Optional): When focus is on a menuitem that has a submenu, opens the submenu and places focus on its first item.
  • (Optional): When focus is on a menuitem that does not have a submenu, activates the menuitem and closes the menu.
• Down Arrow:
  • When focus is on a menuitem in a menubar, opens its submenu and places focus on the first item in the submenu.
  • When focus is in a menu, moves focus to the next item, optionally wrapping from the last to the first.
• Up Arrow:
  • When focus is in a menu, moves focus to the previous item, optionally wrapping from the first to the last.
  • (Optional): When focus is on a menuitem in a menubar, opens its submenu and places focus on the last item in the submenu.
• Right Arrow:
  • When focus is in a menubar, moves focus to the next item, optionally wrapping from the last to the first.
  • When focus is in a menu and on a menuitem that has a submenu, opens the submenu and places focus on its first item.
  • When focus is in a menu and on an item that does not have a submenu, performs the following 3 actions:
    1. Closes the submenu and any parent menus.
    2. Moves focus to the next menuitem in the menubar.
    3. Either: (Recommended) opens the submenu of that menuitem without moving focus into the submenu, or opens the submenu of that menuitem and places focus on the first item in the submenu.
    Note that if the menubar were not present, e.g., the menus were opened from a menubutton, Right Arrow would not do anything when focus is on an item that does not have a submenu.
• Left Arrow:
  • When focus is in a menubar, moves focus to the previous item, optionally wrapping from the first to the last.
  • When focus is in a submenu of an item in a menu, closes the submenu and returns focus to the parent menuitem.
  • When focus is in a submenu of an item in a menubar, performs the following 3 actions:
    1. Closes the submenu.
    2. Moves focus to the previous menuitem in the menubar.
    3. Either: (Recommended) opens the submenu of that menuitem without moving focus into the submenu, or opens the submenu of that menuitem and places focus on the first item in the submenu.
• Home: If arrow key wrapping is not supported, moves focus to the first item in the current menu or menubar.
• End: If arrow key wrapping is not supported, moves focus to the last item in the current menu or menubar.
• Any key that corresponds to a printable character (Optional): Move focus to the next menu item in the current menu whose label begins with that printable character.
• Escape: Close the menu that contains focus and return focus to the element or context, e.g., menu button or parent menuitem, from which the menu was opened.
• Tab: Moves focus to the next element in the tab sequence, and if the item that had focus is not in a menubar, closes its menu and all open parent menu containers.
• Shift + Tab: Moves focus to the previous element in the tab sequence, and if the item that had focus is not in a menubar, closes its menu and all open parent menu containers.

1. Disabled menu items are focusable but cannot be activated.
2. A separator in a menu is not focusable or interactive.
3. If a menu is opened or a menubar receives focus as a result of a context action, Escape or Enter may return focus to the invoking context. For example, a rich text editor may have a menubar that receives focus when a shortcut key, e.g., alt + F10, is pressed while editing. In this case, pressing Escape or activating a command from the menu may return focus to the editor.
4. Although it is recommended that authors avoid doing so, some implementations of navigation menubars may have menuitem elements that both perform a function and open a submenu. In such implementations, enter and Space perform a navigation function, e.g., load new content, while Down Arrow, in a horizontal menubar, opens the submenu associated with that same menuitem.
5. When items in a menubar are arranged vertically and items in menu containers are arranged horizontally:
   1. Down Arrow performs as Right Arrow is described above, and vice versa.
   2. Up Arrow performs as Left Arrow is described above, and vice versa.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• A menu is a container of items that represent choices. The element serving as the menu has a role of either menu or menubar.
• The items contained in a menu are child elements of the containing menu or menubar and have any of the following roles:
  • menuitem
  • menuitemcheckbox
  • menuitemradio
• If activating a menuitem opens a submenu, the menuitem is known as a parent menuitem. A submenu's menu element is contained in or owned by it's parent menuitem.
• A parent menuitem has aria-haspopup set to either menu or true.
• A parent menuitem has aria-expanded set to false when its child menu is not visible and set to true when the child menu is visible.
• One of the following approaches is used to enable scripts to move focus among items in a menu as described in :
  • The menu container has tabindex set to -1 or 0 and aria-activedescendant set to the ID of the focused item.
  • Each item in the menu has tabindex set to -1, except in a menubar, where the first item has tabindex set to 0.
• When a menuitemcheckbox or menuitemradio is checked, aria-checked is set to true.
• When a menu item is disabled, aria-disabled is set to true.
• Items in a menu may be divided into groups by placing an element with a role of separator between groups. For example, this technique should be used when a menu contains a set of menuitemradio items.
• All separators should have aria-orientation consistent with the separator's orientation.
• If a menubar has a visible label, the element with role menubar has aria-labelledby set to a value that refers to the labeling element. Otherwise, the menubar element has a label provided by aria-label.
• If a menubar is vertically oriented, it has aria-orientation set to vertical. The default value of aria-orientation for a menubar is horizontal.
• An element with role menu either has:
  • aria-labelledby set to a value that refers to the menuitem or button that controls its display.
  • A label provided by aria-label.
• If a menu is horizontally oriented, it has aria-orientation set to horizontal. The default value of aria-orientation for a menu is vertical.

If aria-owns is set on the menu container to include elements that are not DOM children of the container, those elements will appear in the reading order in the sequence they are referenced and after any items that are DOM children. Scripts that manage focus need to ensure the visual focus order matches this assistive technology reading order.

Examples

• Navigation Menu Button: A menu button made from an HTML a element that opens a menu of items that behave as links.
• Action Menu Button Example Using element.focus(): A menu button made from an HTML button element that opens a menu of actions or commands where focus in the menu is managed using element.focus().
• Action Menu Button Example Using aria-activedescendant: A button that opens a menu of actions or commands where focus in the menu is managed using aria-activedescendant.

Keyboard Interaction

• With focus on the button:
  • Enter: opens the menu and places focus on the first menu item.
  • Space: Opens the menu and places focus on the first menu item.
  • (Optional) Down Arrow: opens the menu and moves focus to the first menu item.
  • (Optional) Up Arrow: opens the menu and moves focus to the last menu item.
• The keyboard behaviors needed after the menu is open are described in .

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that opens the menu has role button.
• The element with role button has aria-haspopup set to either menu or true.
• When the menu is displayed, the element with role button has aria-expanded set to true. When the menu is hidden, it is recommended that aria-expanded is not present. If aria-expanded is specified when the menu is hidden, it is set to false.
• The element that contains the menu items displayed by activating the button has role menu.
• Optionally, the element with role button has a value specified for aria-controls that refers to the element with role menu.
• Additional roles, states, and properties needed for the menu element are described in .

Examples

• Radio Group Example Using Roving tabindex
• Radio Group Example Using aria-activedescendant

Keyboard Interaction

• When a radio group receives focus:
  • If a radio button is checked, focus is set on the checked button.
  • If none of the radio buttons are checked, focus is set on the first radio button in the group.
• Space: checks the focused radio button if it is not already checked.
• Right Arrow and Down Arrow: move focus to the next radio button in the group, uncheck the previously focused button, and check the newly focused button. If focus is on the last button, focus moves to the first button.
• Left Arrow and Up Arrow: move focus to the previous radio button in the group, uncheck the previously focused button, and check the newly focused button. If focus is on the first button, focus moves to the last button.

The initial focus behavior described above differs slightly from the behavior provided by some browsers for native HTML radio groups. In some browsers, if none of the radio buttons are selected, moving focus into the radio group with Shift+Tab will place focus on the last radio button instead of the first radio button.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The radio buttons are contained in or owned by an element with role radiogroup .
• Each radio button element has role radio .
• If a radio button is checked, the radio element has aria-checked set to true. If it is not checked, it has aria-checked set to false.
• Each radio element is labeled by its content, has a visible label referenced by aria-labelledby , or has a label specified with aria-label .
• The radiogroup element has a visible label referenced by aria-labelledby or has a label specified with aria-label .
• If elements providing additional information about either the radio group or each radio button are present, those elements are referenced by the radiogroup element or radio elements with the aria-describedby property.

Examples

• Horizontal Slider Examples: Demonstrates using three horizontally aligned sliders to make a color picker.
• Slider Examples with aria-orientation and aria-valuetext: Three thermostat control sliders that demonstrate using aria-orientation and aria-valuetext.

Keyboard Interaction

• Right Arrow: Increase the value of the slider by one step.
• Up Arrow: Increase the value of the slider by one step.
• Left Arrow: Decrease the value of the slider by one step.
• Down Arrow: Decrease the value of the slider by one step.
• Home: Set the slider to the first allowed value in its range.
• End: Set the slider to the last allowed value in its range.
• Page Up (Optional): Increment the slider by an amount larger than the step change made by Up Arrow.
• Page Down (Optional): Decrement the slider by an amount larger than the step change made by Down Arrow.

1. Focus is placed on the slider (the visual object that the mouse user would move, also known as the thumb.
2. In some circumstances, reversing the direction of the value change for the keys specified above, e.g., having Up Arrow decrease the value, could create a more intuitive experience.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element serving as the focusable slider control has role slider.
• The slider element has the aria-valuenow property set to a decimal value representing the current value of the slider.
• The slider element has the aria-valuemin property set to a decimal value representing the minimum allowed value of the slider.
• The slider element has the aria-valuemax property set to a decimal value representing the maximum allowed value of the slider.
• If the value of aria-valuenow is not user-friendly, e.g., the day of the week is represented by a number, the aria-valuetext property is set to a string that makes the slider value understandable, e.g., "Monday".
• If the slider has a visible label, it is referenced by aria-labelledby on the slider element. Otherwise, the slider element has a label provided by aria-label.
• If the slider is vertically oriented, it has aria-orientation set to vertical. The default value of aria-orientation for a slider is horizontal.

Example

Multi-Thumb Slider Examples: Demonstrates two-thumb sliders for picking price ranges for an airline flight and hotel reservation.

Keyboard Interaction

• Each thumb is in the page tab sequence and has the same keyboard interaction as a single-thumb slider.
• The tab order remains constant regardless of thumb value and visual position within the slider. For example, if the value of a thumb changes such that it moves past one of the other thumbs, the tab order does not change.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• Each element serving as a focusable slider thumb has role slider.
• Each slider element has the aria-valuenow property set to a decimal value representing the current value of the slider.
• Each slider element has the aria-valuemin property set to a decimal value representing the minimum allowed value of the slider.
• Each slider element has the aria-valuemax property set to a decimal value representing the maximum allowed value of the slider.
• When the range (e.g. minimum and/or maximum value) of another slider is dependent on the current value of a slider, the values of aria-valuemin or aria-valuemax of the dependent sliders are updated when the value changes.
• If a value of aria-valuenow is not user-friendly, e.g., the day of the week is represented by a number, the aria-valuetext property is set to a string that makes the slider value understandable, e.g., "Monday".
• If a slider has a visible label, it is referenced by aria-labelledby on the slider element. Otherwise, the slider element has a label provided by aria-label.
• If a slider is vertically oriented, it has aria-orientation set to vertical. The default value of aria-orientation for a slider is horizontal.

Example

Work to develop a spinbutton example is tracked by issue 125.

Keyboard Interaction

• Up Arrow: Increases the value.
• Down Arrow: Decreases the value.
• Home: If the spinbutton has a minimum value, sets the value to its minimum.
• End: If the spinbutton has a maximum value, sets the value to its maximum.
• Page Up (Optional): Increases the value by a larger step than Up Arrow.
• Page Down (Optional): Decreases the value by a larger step than Down Arrow.
• If the spinbutton text field allows directly editing the value, the following keys are supported:
  • Standard single line text editing keys appropriate for the device platform (see note below).
  • Printable Characters: Type characters in the textbox. Note that many implementations allow only certain characters as part of the value and prevent input of any other characters. For example, an hour-and-minute spinner would allow only integer values from 0 to 59, the colon ':', and the letters 'AM' and 'PM'. Any other character input does not change the contents of the text field nor the value of the spinbutton.

1. Focus remains on the text field during operation.
2. Standard single line text editing keys appropriate for the device platform:
   1. include keys for input, cursor movement, selection, and text manipulation.
   2. Standard key assignments for editing functions depend on the device operating system.
   3. The most robust approach for providing text editing functions is to rely on browsers, which supply them for HTML inputs with type text and for elements with the contenteditable HTML attribute.
   4. IMPORTANT: Be sure that JavaScript does not interfere with browser-provided text editing functions by capturing key events for the keys used to perform them.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The focusable element serving as the spinbutton has role spinbutton. This is typically an element that supports text input.
• The spinbutton element has the aria-valuenow property set to a decimal value representing the current value of the spinbutton.
• The spinbutton element has the aria-valuemin property set to a decimal value representing the minimum allowed value of the spinbutton if it has a known minimum value.
• The spinbutton element has the aria-valuemax property set to a decimal value representing the maximum allowed value of the spinbutton if it has a known maximum value.
• If the value of aria-valuenow is not user-friendly, e.g., the day of the week is represented by a number, the aria-valuetext property is set on the spinbutton element to a string that makes the spinbutton value understandable, e.g., "Monday".
• If the spinbutton has a visible label, it is referenced by aria-labelledby on the spinbutton element. Otherwise, the spinbutton element has a label provided by aria-label.

Examples

Table Example: ARIA table made using HTML div and span elements.

Keyboard Interaction

Not applicable.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The table container has role table.
• Each row container has role row and is either a DOM descendant of or owned by the table element or an element with role rowgroup.
• Each cell is either a DOM descendant of or owned by a row element and has one of the following roles:
  • columnheader if the cell contains a title or header information for the column.
  • rowheader if the cell contains title or header information for the row.
  • cell if the cell does not contain column or row header information.
• If there is an element in the user interface that serves as a label for the table, aria-labelledby is set on the table element with a value that refers to the labeling element. Otherwise, a label is specified for the table element using aria-label.
• If the table has a caption or description, aria-describedby is set on the table element with a value referring to the element containing the description.
• If the table contains sortable columns or rows, aria-sort is set to an appropriate value on the header cell element for the sorted column or row as described in the section on grid and table properties.
• If there are conditions where some rows or columns are hidden or not present in the DOM, e.g., there are widgets on the page for hiding rows or columns, the following properties are applied as described in the section on grid and table properties.
  • aria-colcount or aria-rowcount is set to the total number of columns or rows, respectively.
  • aria-colindex or aria-rowindex is set to the position of a cell within a row or column, respectively.
• If the table includes cells that span multiple rows or multiple columns, then aria-rowspan or aria-colspan is applied as described in grid and table properties.

If rows or cells are included in a table via aria-owns, they will be presented to assistive technologies after the DOM descendants of the table element unless the DOM descendants are also included in the aria-owns attribute.

Examples

• Tabs With Automatic Activation: A tabs widget where tabs are automatically activated and their panel is displayed when they receive focus.
• Tabs With Manual Activation: A tabs widget where users activate a tab and display its panel by pressing Space or Enter.

Keyboard Interaction

For the tab list:

• Tab: When focus moves into the tab list, places focus on the active tab element . When the tab list contains the focus, moves focus to the next element in the page tab sequence outside the tablist, which is typically either the first focusable element inside the tab panel or the tab panel itself.
• When focus is on a tab element in a horizontal tab list:
  • Left Arrow: moves focus to the previous tab. If focus is on the first tab, moves focus to the last tab. Optionally, activates the newly focused tab (See note below).
  • Right Arrow: Moves focus to the next tab. If focus is on the last tab element, moves focus to the first tab. Optionally, activates the newly focused tab (See note below).
• When focus is on a tab in a tablist with either horizontal or vertical orientation:
  • Space or Enter: Activates the tab if it was not activated automatically on focus.
  • Home (Optional): Moves focus to the first tab. Optionally, activates the newly focused tab (See note below).
  • End (Optional): Moves focus to the last tab. Optionally, activates the newly focused tab (See note below).
  • Shift + F10: If the tab has an associated pop-up menu, opens the menu.
  • Delete (Optional): If deletion is allowed, deletes (closes) the current tab element and its associated tab panel, sets focus on the tab following the tab that was closed, and optionally activates the newly focused tab. If there is not a tab that followed the tab that was deleted, e.g., the deleted tab was the right-most tab in a left-to-right horizontal tab list, sets focus on and optionally activates the tab that preceded the deleted tab. If the application allows all tabs to be deleted, and the user deletes the last remaining tab in the tab list, the application moves focus to another element that provides a logical work flow. As an alternative to Delete, or in addition to supporting Delete, the delete function is available in a context menu.

1. It is recommended that tabs activate automatically when they receive focus as long as their associated tab panels are displayed without noticeable latency. This typically requires tab panel content to be preloaded. Otherwise, automatic activation slows focus movement, which significantly hampers users' ability to navigate efficiently across the tab list. For additional guidance, see .
2. If the tabs in a tab list are arranged vertically:
   1. Down Arrow performs as Right Arrow is described above.
   2. Up Arrow performs as Left Arrow is described above.
3. If the tab list is horizontal, it does not listen for Down Arrow or Up Arrow so those keys can provide their normal browser scrolling functions even when focus is inside the tab list.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that serves as the container for the set of tabs has role tablist.
• Each element that serves as a tab has role tab and is contained within the element with role tablist.
• Each element that contains the content panel for a tab has role tabpanel.
• Each element with role tab has the property aria-controls referring to its associated tabpanel element.
• The active tab element has the state aria-selected set to true and all other tab elements have it set to false.
• Each element with role tabpanel has the property aria-labelledby referring to its associated tab element.
• If a tab element has a pop-up menu, it has the property aria-haspopup set to either menu or true.
• If the tablist element is vertically oriented, it has the property aria-orientation set to vertical. The default value of aria-orientation for a tablist element is horizontal.

Example

Toolbar Example: A toolbar that uses roving tabindex to manage focus and contains several buttons, including a menu button.

Keyboard Interaction

• When the toolbar receives focus, focus is set on the first control that is not disabled. Optionally, if the toolbar has previously contained focus, focus is set on the control that last had focus.
• For a horizontal toolbar (the default):
  • Left Arrow: Moves focus to the previous control. Optionally, focus movement may wrap from the first element to the last element.
  • Right Arrow: Moves focus to the next control. Optionally, focus movement may wrap from the last element to the first element.
• Home (Optional): Moves focus to first element.
• End (Optional): Moves focus to last element.

1. If the items in a toolbar are arranged vertically:
   1. Down Arrow performs as Right Arrow is described above.
   2. Up Arrow performs as Left Arrow is described above.
2. Typically, disabled elements are not focusable when navigating with a keyboard. However, in circumstances where discoverability of a function is crucial, it may be helpful if disabled controls are focusable so screen reader users are more likely to be aware of their presence. For additional guidance, see .
3. In applications where quick access to a toolbar is important, such as accessing an editor's toolbar from its text area, a documented shortcut key for moving focus from the relevant context to its corresponding toolbar is recommended.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that serves as the toolbar container has role toolbar.
• If the toolbar has a visible label, it is referenced by aria-labelledby on the toolbar element. Otherwise, the toolbar element has a label provided by aria-label.
• If the controls are arranged vertically, the toolbar element has aria-orientation set to vertical. The default orientation is horizontal.

Example

Work to develop a tooltip example is tracked by issue 127.

Keyboard Interaction

Escape: Dismisses the Tooltip.

1. Focus stays on the triggering element while the tooltip is displayed.
2. If the tooltip is invoked when the trigger element receives focus, then it is dismissed when it no longer has focus (onBlur). If the tooltip is invoked with mouseIn, then it is dismissed with on mouseOut.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that serves as the tooltip container has role tooltip.
• The element that triggers the tooltip references the tooltip element with aria-describedby.

Examples

• File Directory Treeview Example Using Computed Properties: A file selector tree that demonstrates browser support for automatically computing aria-level, aria-posinset and aria-setsize based on DOM structure.
• File Directory Treeview Example Using Declared Properties: A file selector tree that demonstrates how to explicitly define values for aria-level, aria-posinset and aria-setsize.
• Navigation Treeview Example Using Computed Properties: A tree that provides navigation to a set of web pages and demonstrates browser support for automatically computing aria-level, aria-posinset and aria-setsize based on DOM structure.
• Navigation Treeview Example Using Declared Properties: A tree that provides navigation to a set of web pages and demonstrates how to explicitly define values for aria-level, aria-posinset and aria-setsize.

Keyboard Interaction

For a vertically oriented tree:

• When a single-select tree receives focus:
  • If none of the nodes are selected before the tree receives focus, focus is set on the first node.
  • If a node is selected before the tree receives focus, focus is set on the selected node.
• When a multi-select tree receives focus:
  • If none of the nodes are selected before the tree receives focus, focus is set on the first node.
  • If one or more nodes are selected before the tree receives focus, focus is set on the first selected node.
• Right arrow:
  • When focus is on a closed node, opens the node; focus does not move.
  • When focus is on a open node, moves focus to the first child node.
  • When focus is on an end node, does nothing.
• Left arrow:
  • When focus is on an open node, closes the node.
  • When focus is on a child node that is also either an end node or a closed node, moves focus to its parent node.
  • When focus is on a root node that is also either an end node or a closed node, does nothing.
• Down Arrow: Moves focus to the next node that is focusable without opening or closing a node.
• Up Arrow: Moves focus to the previous node that is focusable without opening or closing a node.
• Home: Moves focus to the first node in the tree without opening or closing a node.
• End: Moves focus to the last node in the tree that is focusable without opening a node.
• Enter: activates a node, i.e., performs its default action. For parent nodes, one possible default action is to open or close the node. In single-select trees where selection does not follow focus (see note below), the default action is typically to select the focused node.
• Type-ahead is recommended for all trees, especially for trees with more than 7 root nodes:
  • Type a character: focus moves to the next node with a name that starts with the typed character.
  • Type multiple characters in rapid succession: focus moves to the next node with a name that starts with the string of characters typed.
• * (Optional): Expands all siblings that are at the same level as the current node.
• Selection in multi-select trees: Authors may implement either of two interaction models to support multiple selection: a recommended model that does not require the user to hold a modifier key, such as Shift or Control, while navigating the list or an alternative model that does require modifier keys to be held while navigating in order to avoid losing selection states.
  • Recommended selection model -- holding a modifier key while moving focus is not necessary:
    • Space: Toggles the selection state of the focused node.
    • Shift + Down Arrow (Optional): Moves focus to and toggles the selection state of the next node.
    • Shift + Up Arrow (Optional): Moves focus to and toggles the selection state of the previous node.
    • Shift + Space (Optional): Selects contiguous nodes from the most recently selected node to the current node.
    • Control + Shift + Home (Optional): Selects the node with focus and all nodes up to the first node. Optionally, moves focus to the first node.
    • Control + Shift + End (Optional): Selects the node with focus and all nodes down to the last node. Optionally, moves focus to the last node.
    • Control + A (Optional): Selects all nodes in the tree. Optionally, if all nodes are selected, it can also unselect all nodes.
  • Alternative selection model -- Moving focus without holding the Shift or Control modifier unselects all selected nodes except for the focused node:
    • Shift + Down Arrow: Moves focus to and toggles the selection state of the next node.
    • Shift + Up Arrow: Moves focus to and toggles the selection state of the previous node.
    • Control + Down Arrow: Without changing the selection state, moves focus to the next node.
    • Control + Up Arrow: Without changing the selection state, moves focus to the previous node.
    • Control + Space: Toggles the selection state of the focused node.
    • Shift + Space (Optional): Selects contiguous nodes from the most recently selected node to the current node.
    • Control + Shift + Home (Optional): Selects the node with focus and all nodes up to the first node. Optionally, moves focus to the first node.
    • Control + Shift + End (Optional): Selects the node with focus and all nodes down to the last node. Optionally, moves focus to the last node.
    • Control + A (Optional): Selects all nodes in the tree. Optionally, if all nodes are selected, it can also unselect all nodes.

1. DOM focus (the active element) is functionally distinct from the selected state. For more details, see this description of differences between focus and selection.
2. The tree role supports the aria-activedescendant property, which provides an alternative to moving DOM focus among treeitem elements when implementing keyboard navigation. For details, see Managing Focus in Composites Using aria-activedescendant.
3. In a single-select tree, moving focus may optionally unselect the previously selected node and select the newly focused node. This model of selection is known as "selection follows focus". Having selection follow focus can be very helpful in some circumstances and can severely degrade accessibility in others. For additional guidance, see Deciding When to Make Selection Automatically Follow Focus.
4. If selecting or unselecting all nodes is an important function, implementing separate controls for these actions, such as buttons for "Select All" and "Unselect All", significantly improves accessibility.
5. If the nodes in a tree are arranged horizontally:
   1. Down Arrow performs as Right Arrow is described above, and vice versa.
   2. Up Arrow performs as Left Arrow is described above, and vice versa.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• All tree nodes are contained in or owned by an element with role tree.
• Each element serving as a tree node has role treeitem.
• Each root node is contained in the element with role tree or referenced by an aria-owns property set on the tree element.
• Each parent node contains or owns an element with role group.
• Each child node is contained in or owned by an element with role group that is contained in or owned by the node that serves as the parent of that child.
• Each element with role treeitem that serves as a parent node has aria-expanded set to false when the node is in a closed state and set to true when the node is in an open state. End nodes do not have the aria-expanded attribute because, if they were to have it, they would be incorrectly described to assistive technologies as parent nodes.
• If the tree supports selection of more than one node, the element with role tree has aria-multiselectable set to true. Otherwise, aria-multiselectable is either set to false or the default value of false is implied.
• If the tree does not support multiple selection, aria-selected is set to true for the selected node and it is not present on any other node in the tree.
• if the tree supports multiple selection:
  • All selected nodes have aria-selected set to true.
  • All nodes that are not selected have aria-selected set to false.
• The element with role tree has either a visible label referenced by aria-labelledby or a value specified for aria-label.
• If the complete set of available nodes is not present in the DOM due to dynamic loading as the user moves focus in or scrolls the tree, each node has aria-level, aria-setsize, and aria-posinset specified.
• If the tree element is horizontally oriented, it has aria-orientation set to horizontal. The default value of aria-orientation for a tree is vertical.

If aria-owns is set on the tree container to include elements that are not DOM children of the container, those elements will appear in the reading order in the sequence they are referenced and after any items that are DOM children. Scripts that manage focus need to ensure the visual focus order matches this assistive technology reading order.

Examples

• Hierarchical E-mail list treegrid Example with three types of focus navigation: Rows first, cells first and cells only interaction options.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The treegrid container has role treegrid.
• Each row container has role row and is either a DOM descendant of or owned by the treegrid element or an element with role rowgroup.
• Each cell is either a DOM descendant of or owned by a row element and has one of the following roles:
  • columnheader if the cell contains a title or header information for the column.
  • rowheader if the cell contains title or header information for the row.
  • gridcell if the cell does not contain column or row header information.
• Each row with the aria-expanded state or that contains a gridcell with the aria-expanded state identifies the row as a parent row. Set to aria-expanded to false when the child rows are in a closed state and set to true when the child rows are in an open state. End rows cannot have the aria-expanded attribute because, if they were to have it, they would be incorrectly described to assistive technologies as parent nodes.
• If the treegrid supports selection of more than one row or cell, the element with role treegrid has aria-multiselectable set to true. Otherwise, aria-multiselectable is either set to false or the default value of false is implied.
• If the treegrid does not support multiple selection, aria-selected is set to true for the selected row or cell and it is not present on any other row or cell in the treegrid.
• if the treegrid supports multiple selection:
  • All selected rows or cells have aria-selected set to true.
  • All rows and cells that are not selected have aria-selected set to false.
• If there is an element in the user interface that serves as a label for the treegrid, aria-labelledby is set on the grid element with a value that refers to the labeling element. Otherwise, a label is specified for the grid element using aria-label.
• If the treegrid has a caption or description, aria-describedby is set on the grid element with a value referring to the element containing the description.
• If the treegrid provides sort functions, aria-sort is set to an appropriate value on the header cell element for the sorted column or row as described in the section on grid and table properties.
• If the treegrid supports selection, when a cell or row is selected, the selected element has aria-selected set true.
• If the treegrid provides content editing functionality and contains cells that may have edit capabilities disabled in certain conditions, aria-readonly may be set true on cells where editing is disabled. If edit functions are disabled for all cells, aria-readonly may be set true on the grid element. Grids that do not provide editing functions do not include the aria-readonly attribute on any of their elements.
• If there are conditions where some rows or columns are hidden or not present in the DOM, e.g., data is dynamically loaded when scrolling or the grid provides functions for hiding rows or columns, the following properties are applied as described in the section on grid and table properties.
  • aria-colcount or aria-rowcount is set to the total number of columns or rows, respectively.
  • aria-colindex or aria-rowindex is set to the position of a cell within a row or column, respectively.
• If the treegrid includes cells that span multiple rows or multiple columns, and if the treegrid role is NOT applied to an HTML table element, then aria-rowspan or aria-colspan is applied as described in grid and table properties.

• If the element with the treegrid role is an HTML table element, then it is not necessary to use ARIA roles for rows and cells because the HTML elements have implied ARIA semantics. For example, an HTML <TR> has an implied ARIA role of row. A treegrid built from an HTML table that includes cells that span multiple rows or columns must use HTML rowspan and colspan and must not use aria-rowspan or aria-colspan.
• If rows or cells are included in a treegrid via aria-owns, they will be presented to assistive technologies after the DOM descendants of the treegrid element unless the DOM descendants are also included in the aria-owns attribute.

Example

Work to develop an example window splitter widget is tracked by issue 130.

Keyboard Interaction

• Left Arrow: Moves a vertical splitter to the left.
• Right Arrow: Moves a vertical splitter to the right.
• Up Arrow: Moves a horizontal splitter up.
• Down Arrow: Moves a horizontal splitter down.
• Enter: If the primary pane is not collapsed, collapses the pane. If the pane is collapsed, restores the splitter to its previous position.
• Home (Optional): Moves splitter to the position that gives the primary pane its smallest allowed size. This may completely collapse the primary pane.
• End (Optional): Moves splitter to the position that gives the primary pane its largest allowed size. This may completely collapse the secondary pane.
• F6 (Optional): Cycle through window panes.

A fixed size splitter omits implementation of the arrow keys.

WAI-ARIA Roles, States, and Properties

• The element that serves as the focusable splitter has role separator.
• The separator element has the aria-valuenow property set to a decimal value representing the current position of the separator.
• The separator element has the aria-valuemin property set to a decimal value that represents the position where the primary pane has its minimum size. This is typically 0.
• The separator element has the aria-valuemax property set to a decimal value that represents the position where the primary pane has its maximum size . This is typically 100.
• If the primary pane has a visible label, it is referenced by aria-labelledby on the separator element. Otherwise, the separator element has a label provided by aria-label.
• The separator element has aria-controls referring to the primary pane.