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Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Current Status

This page summarizes the relationships among specifications, whether they are finished standards or drafts. Below, each title links to the most recent version of a document. For related introductory information, see: Accessibility, JavaScript Web APIs, Protocol and Meta Format Considerations.

Completed Work

W3C Recommendations have been reviewed by W3C Members, by software developers, and by other W3C groups and interested parties, and are endorsed by the Director as Web Standards. Learn more about the W3C Recommendation Track.

Group Notes are not standards and do not have the same level of W3C endorsement.

Standards

2013-03-28

Role Attribute 1.0

errata

The Role Attribute defined in this specification allows the author to annotate markup languages with machine-extractable semantic information about the purpose of an element.

Drafts

Below are draft documents: Candidate Recommendations, other Working Drafts. Some of these may become Web Standards through the W3C Recommendation Track process. Others may be published as Group Notes or become obsolete specifications.

Candidate Recommendations

2011-01-18

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0

Accessibility of Web content to people with disabilities requires semantic information about widgets, structures, and behaviors, in order to allow Assistive Technologies to make appropriate transformations. This specification provides an ontology of roles, states, and properties that set out an abstract model for accessible interfaces and can be used to improve the accessibility and interoperability of Web Content and Applications. This information can be mapped to accessibility frameworks that use this information to provide alternative access solutions. Similarly, this information can be used to change the rendering of content dynamically using different style sheet properties. The result is an interoperable method for associating behaviors with document-level markup. This document is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the ARIA Overview.

Other Working Drafts

2013-03-07

WAI-ARIA 1.0 Authoring Practices

This document specifies Best Practices for delivering accessible rich internet applications using WAI-ARIA [ARIA]. The principle objective is to produce a usable, accessible experience over the Web. It provides recommended approaches to create accessible Web content using WAI-ARIA roles, states, and properties to make widgets, navigation, and behaviors accessible. The document also describes considerations that might not be evident to most implementers from the WAI-ARIA specification alone. This document is directed primarily to Web application developers, but the guidance is also useful to user agent and assistive technology developers. This document is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the WAI-ARIA Overview.
2013-02-14

Using WAI-ARIA in HTML

This document is a practical guide for developers on how to add accessibility information to HTML elements using ARIA, a markup mechanism for making Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities.
2012-08-16

WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation Guide

Describes how user agents should support keyboard navigation, respond to roles, states, and properties provided in Web content via WAI-ARIA, and expose this to accessibility APIs.
2010-09-16

WAI-ARIA 1.0 Primer

The WAI-ARIA Primer introduces developers to the use of WAI-ARIA [ARIA] for addressing the accessibility of dynamic Web content for people with disabilities. This primer explains the accessibility problems posed by hybrid technologies such as DHTML and Ajax. It introduces the technologies to map controls, Ajax live regions, and events to accessibility APIs, including custom controls used for Rich Internet Applications. The primer also describes new navigation techniques to mark common Web elements such as menus, primary content, secondary content, banner information and other types of Web structures. These new technologies can be used to improve the accessibility and usability of Web resources by people with disabilities, without extensive modification to existing libraries of Web resources. This document is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the WAI-ARIA Overview.
2008-02-04

Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA Roadmap)

The Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications addresses the accessibility of dynamic Web content for people with disabilities. The roadmap introduces the technologies to map controls, Ajax live regions, and events to accessibility APIs, including custom controls used for Rich Internet Applications. The roadmap also describes new navigation techniques to mark common Web structures as menus, primary content, secondary content, banner information and other types of Web structures. These new technologies can be used to improve the accessibility and usability of Web resources by people with disabilities, without extensive modification to existing libraries of Web resources. This document is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the WAI-ARIA Overview.