Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1

Abstract

Accessibility of web content requires semantic information about widgets, structures, and behaviors, in order to allow assistive technologies to convey appropriate information to persons with disabilities. This specification provides an ontology of roles, states, and properties that define accessible user interface elements and can be used to improve the accessibility and interoperability of web content and applications. These semantics are designed to allow an author to properly convey user interface behaviors and structural information to assistive technologies in document-level markup. WAI-ARIA 1.1 adds features new since WAI-ARIA 1.0 to complete the HTML + ARIA accessibility model. It is expected this will complement HTML 5.1.

This document is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the WAI-ARIA Overview.

Status of this Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

This is a First Public Working Draft of WAI-ARIA 1.1 by the Protocols & Formats Working Group of the Web Accessibility Initiative. The primary feature that is new since WAI-ARIA 1.0 is the aria-describedat property, which aims to meet extended description use cases that are not met by aria-describedby. The specific engineering of this feature may change and is being published now to collect public feedback both on this proposal and suggestions for other proposals. Future drafts of ARIA 1.1 will also provide a small number of features to complete the HTML + ARIA accessibility model. It is expected this will complement HTML 5.1. ARIA 1.1 will have a very limited scope. Requirements will be published in the near future. This version of ARIA 1.1 also includes a small set of editorial changes that accumulated in ARIA 1.0 after the publication of the Candidate Recommendation. A history of changes to WAI-ARIA is available.

For this publication, the Protocols and Formats Working Group primarily seeks feedback on the aria-describedat feature, but feedback on any aspect of the specification is accepted. To comment, send email to public-pfwg-comments@w3.org (comment archive). Comments are requested by 1 November 2013. In-progress updates to the document may be viewed in the publicly visible editors' draft.

Publication as a First Public Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

The disclosure obligations of the Participants of this group are described in the charter.

Table of Contents

1. Abstract
2. Status of This Document
3. 1. Introduction
   1. 1.1. Rich Internet Application Accessibility
   2. 1.2. Target Audience
   3. 1.3. User Agent Support
   4. 1.4. Co-Evolution of WAI-ARIA and Host Languages
   5. 1.5. Authoring Practices
      1. 1.5.1. Authoring Tools
      2. 1.5.2. Testing Practices and Tools
   6. 1.6. Assistive Technologies
4. 2. Using WAI-ARIA
   1. 2.1. WAI-ARIA Roles
   2. 2.2. WAI-ARIA States and Properties
   3. 2.3. Managing Focus
5. 3. Normative Requirements for WAI-ARIA
6. 4. Important Terms
7. 5. The Roles Model
   1. 5.1. Relationships Between Concepts
      1. 5.1.1. Superclass Role
      2. 5.1.2. Subclass Roles
      3. 5.1.3. Related Concepts
      4. 5.1.4. Base Concept
   2. 5.2. Characteristics of Roles
      1. 5.2.1. Abstract Roles
      2. 5.2.2. Required States and Properties
      3. 5.2.3. Supported States and Properties
      4. 5.2.4. Inherited States and Properties
      5. 5.2.5. Required Owned Elements
      6. 5.2.6. Required Context Role
      7. 5.2.7. Accessible Name Calculation
      8. 5.2.8. Presentational Children
      9. 5.2.9. Implicit Value for Role
   3. 5.3. Categorization of Roles
      1. 5.3.1. Abstract Roles
      2. 5.3.2. Widget Roles
      3. 5.3.3. Document Structure
      4. 5.3.4. Landmark Roles
   4. 5.4. Definition of Roles
8. 6. Supported States and Properties
   1. 6.1. Clarification of States versus Properties
   2. 6.2. Characteristics of States and Properties
      1. 6.2.1. Related Concepts
      2. 6.2.2. Used in Roles
      3. 6.2.3. Inherits into Roles
      4. 6.2.4. Value
   3. 6.3. Values for States and Properties
   4. 6.4. Global States and Properties
   5. 6.5. Taxonomy of WAI-ARIA States and Properties
      1. 6.5.1. Widget Attributes
      2. 6.5.2. Live Region Attributes
      3. 6.5.3. Drag-and-Drop Attributes
      4. 6.5.4. Relationship Attributes
   6. 6.6. Definitions of States and Properties (all aria-* attributes)
9. 7. Implementation in Host Languages
   1. 7.1. Role Attribute
   2. 7.2. State and Property Attributes
   3. 7.3. Focus Navigation
   4. 7.4. Implicit WAI-ARIA Semantics
   5. 7.5. Conflicts with Host Language Semantics
   6. 7.6. State and Property Attribute Processing
10. 8. Conformance
    1. 8.1. Non-interference with the Host Language
    2. 8.2. All WAI-ARIA in DOM
    3. 8.3. Assistive Technology Notifications Communicated to Web Applications
    4. 8.4. Conformance Checkers
11. 9. References
    1. 9.1. Normative References
    2. 9.2. Informative References
12. 10. Appendices
    1. 10.1. Schemata
       1. 10.1.1. Roles Implementation
       2. 10.1.2. WAI-ARIA Attributes Module
       3. 10.1.3. XHTML plus WAI-ARIA DTD
       4. 10.1.4. SGML Open Catalog Entry for XHTML+ARIA
       5. 10.1.5. WAI-ARIA Attributes XML Schema Module
       6. 10.1.6. HTML 4.01 plus WAI-ARIA DTD
    2. 10.2. Mapping WAI-ARIA Value types to languages
    3. 10.3. Normative changes since the last public working draft
    4. 10.4. WAI-ARIA Role, State, and Property Quick Reference
    5. 10.5. Acknowledgments
       1. 10.5.1. Participants active in the PFWG at the time of publication
       2. 10.5.2. Other ARIA contributors, commenters, and previously active PFWG participants
       3. 10.5.3. Enabling funders