Using aria-label to provide labels for objects

From WCAG WG
(Redirected from Using aria-label)


Status

Status

surveyed by TF

  • 1 Nov 2012: Ready for WG Review
  • Added to XML by AWK 2014/1/2

User Agent Notes [To be published separately]

  • Jaws V.11 and greater has complete support.
  • ChromeVox V.1 and greater has complete support
  • VoiceOver V.3 and greater supports ???
  • NVDA 2 supports Aria Describedby ???
  • Window Eyes as of V.7 ???.

Applicability

As of this writing this technique applies to HTML technologies.

This technique relates to:

Description

The purpose of this technique is to provide a label for objects that can be read by assistive technology. The aria-label attribute provides the text label for an object, such as a button. When a screen reader encounters the object, the aria-label text is read so that the user will know what it is.

Authors should be aware that aria-label may be disregarded by assistive technologies in situations where aria-labelledby is used for the same object. For more information on the naming hierarchy please consult the ARIA specification and the accessible name and description calculation in the HTML to Platform Accessibility APIs Implementation Guide. Authors should be aware that use of aria-label will override any native naming such as alt on images or label associated with a form field using the for attribute.

Examples

Example 1

The following example shows how a aria-label could be used to distinguish two navigation landmarks in a HTML4 and XHTML 1.0 document, where there are more than two of the same type of landmark on the same page, and there is no existing text on the page that can be referenced as the label. 

<div role="navigation" aria-label="Primary">
<ul><li>...a list of links here ...</li></ul> </div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Secondary">
<ul><li>...a list of links here ...</li> </ul></div>

Example 2

The following example shows how a generic "region" landmark might be added to a weather portlet. There is no existing text on the page that can be referenced as the label, so it is labelled with aria-label. 

<div role="region" aria-label="weather portlet"> 
...
</div>

Example 3

Below is an example of a math ML function, using the math role, appropriate label, and MathML rendering: 


<div role="math" aria-label="6 divided by 4 equals 1.5">
  <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
    <mfrac>
      <mn>6</mn>
      <mn>4</mn>
    </mfrac>
    <mo>=</mo>
    <mn>1.5</mn>
  </math>
</div>

Resources

Related Techniques

Tests

Procedure

For each element where a aria-label role attribute is present.

  1. Examine whether the text description accurately labels the object or provides a description of its purpose or provides equivalent information.

Expected Results

Test #1 is true.

Retrieved from "https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/index.php?title=Using_aria-label_to_provide_labels_for_objects&oldid=3714"