W3C

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Version 1.0

Editor's Draft 12 January 2009

This version:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/
Latest public version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/
Editors:
Michael Cooper, W3C
James Craig, Apple Inc.
Lisa Pappas, Society for Technical Communication
Rich Schwerdtfeger, IBM
Lisa Seeman, UB Access

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, resulting in an interoperable method for associating user interface behaviors with document-level markup. This document is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the 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 an Editor's Draft of the Protocols and Formats Working Group. It is not stable and may change at any time. Implementors should not use this for anything other than experimental implementations.

Publication as a 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 anything 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. 1. Introduction
    1. 1.1. Scope
    2. 1.2. Use Cases
  2. 2. Using WAI-ARIA
    1. 2.1. WAI-ARIA Roles
    2. 2.2. WAI-ARIA States and Properties
    3. 2.3. Managing Focus
    4. 2.4. Building Accessible Applications with WAI-ARIA
    5. 2.5. Example: building a tree widget
  3. 3. Normative Requirements
  4. 4. The Roles Model
    1. 4.1. Relationships between concepts
      1. 4.1.1. Parent Roles
      2. 4.1.2. Child Roles
      3. 4.1.3. Related Concepts
      4. 4.1.4. Base Concept
    2. 4.2. Characteristics of Roles
      1. 4.2.1. Abstract Roles (Is Abstract)
      2. 4.2.2. Required States and Properties
      3. 4.2.3. Supported States and Properties
      4. 4.2.4. Inherited States and Properties
      5. 4.2.5. Required Child Elements
      6. 4.2.6. Parent Element
      7. 4.2.7. Accessible Name Calculation (nameFrom)
      8. 4.2.8. Children Presentational
    3. 4.3. Global States and Properties
    4. 4.4. Categorization of Roles
      1. 4.4.1. Base Types
      2. 4.4.2. User Input Widgets
      3. 4.4.3. User Interface Elements
      4. 4.4.4. Document Structure
      5. 4.4.5. Application Structure
      6. 4.4.6. Landmark Roles Inherited from the XHTML Role Attribute Module
    5. 4.5. Definition of Roles
  5. 5. Supported States and Properties
    1. 5.1. Clarification of States versus Properties
    2. 5.2. Characteristics of States and Properties
      1. 5.2.1. Related Concepts
      2. 5.2.2. Used in Roles
      3. 5.2.3. Inherits into Roles
      4. 5.2.4. Value
    3. 5.3. Taxonomy of ARIA States and Properties
      1. 5.3.1. Widget Attributes
      2. 5.3.2. Live Region Attributes
      3. 5.3.3. Drag-and-Drop Attributes
      4. 5.3.4. Relationship Attributes
    4. 5.4. Definitions of States and Properties (all aria-* attributes)
  6. 6. Implementation in Host Languages
    1. 6.1. General requirements on implementing host languages
      1. 6.1.1. Role attribute
      2. 6.1.2. State and property attributes
      3. 6.1.3. Focus Navigation
      4. 6.1.4. Resolving Conflicts with Host Languages
    2. 6.2. Implementation using the Modularization Recommendation
  7. 7. Quality Assurance
    1. 7.1. Authoring practices
      1. 7.1.1. Authoring tools
      2. 7.1.2. Testing practices and tools
    2. 7.2. User Agent Conformance
      1. 7.2.1. Non-interference with the host language
      2. 7.2.2. Applicable ARIA Role
      3. 7.2.3. All ARIA in DOM
      4. 7.2.4. Accessibility API mapping
    3. 7.3. Assistive Technologies
  8. 8. Appendices
    1. 8.1. Implementations
      1. 8.1.1. Roles Implementation
      2. 8.1.2. ARIA Attributes Module
      3. 8.1.3. Sample XHTML plus ARIA DTD
    2. 8.2. Glossary
    3. 8.3. References
    4. 8.4. Acknowledgments
      1. 8.4.1. Participants in the PFWG at the time of publication
      2. 8.4.2. Other previously active PFWG participants and other contributors to the Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification
      3. 8.4.3. Enabling funders

1. Introduction

This section is informative.

The domain of Web accessibility defines how to make Web content usable by persons with disabilities. Persons with certain types of disabilities use assistive technology (AT) to interact with content. Assistive technology software can transform the presentation into a format more suitable to the user, and can allow the user to interact in different ways than the author designed. In order to accomplish this effectively, the software must understand the semantics of the content. Semantics are knowledge of roles, states, and properties that apply to content elements as a person would understand them. For instance, if a paragraph is semantically identified as such, assistive technology can interact with it as a unit separable from the rest of the content, knowing the exact boundaries of that paragraph. A range slider or collapsible tree widget are more complex examples, in which various parts of the widget have semantics that must be properly identified for the assistive technology to support effective interaction.

New technologies often overlook the semantics required for accessibility, and new authoring practices often misuse the intended semantics of those technologies. Elements that have one defined meaning in the language are used with a different meaning intended to be understood by the user.

For example, Web application developers create collapsible tree widgets in HTML using CSS and JavaScript even though HTML lacks an appropriate semantic element. To a non-disabled user, it may look and act like a collapsible tree widget, but without appropriate semantics, the tree widget may not be perceivable to or usable by a person with a disability.

The incorporation of WAI-ARIA is a way for an author to provide proper semantics for custom widgets to make these widgets accessible, usable, and interoperable with assistive technologies. This specification identifies the types of widgets and structures that are commonly recognized by accessibility products, by providing an ontology of corresponding roles that can be attached to content. This allows elements with a given role to be understood as a particular widget or structural type regardless of any semantic inherited from the implementing technology. Roles are a common property of platform accessibility APIs which assistive technologies use to provide the user with effective presentation and interaction.

This role taxonomy includes interaction widgets and elements denoting document structure. The role taxonomy describes inheritance and details what additional attributes each role supports. Information about mapping of roles to accessibility APIs is provided by the ARIA Implementors Guide [@@].

Roles are element types and should not change with time or user actions. Changing the role on an element from its initial value will likely be treated by accessibility API events as the removal of the old element and insertion of a new element with the new role.

States and properties are used to declare important attributes of an element that affect and describe interaction. They enable the user agent or operating system to properly handle the element even when the attributes are dynamically changed by client-side scripts. For example, alternative input and output technology such as screen readers, speech dictation software, and on-screen keyboards must be able to recognize and effectively communicate various states (disabled, checked, etc.) to the user.

While it is possible for assistive technologies to access these properties directly through the Document Object Model [DOM], the preferred mechanism is for the user agent to map the states and properties to the accessibility API of the operating system. See the ARIA Implementors Guide. [@@]

Figure 1.0 illustrates a typical Document Object Model (DOM) [DOM] node. Placed within the DOM node and the assistive technology is a box containing the “contract” provided by the user agent to the assistive technology. This data includes typical accessibility information found in the accessibility API for many of our accessible platforms for GUIs (role, state, selection, event notification, relationship information, and descriptions).

The contract model with accessibility APIs

Figure 1: The contract model with accessibility APIs

For more information see the WAI-ARIA Primer [ARIA-PRIMER] for the use of roles in making interactive content accessible.

In addition to the prose documentation, the role taxonomy is provided in Web Ontology Language (OWL) [OWL], which is an implementation of Resource Description Framework (RDF) [RDF]. Tools can use these to validate the implementation of roles in a given content document.

Note: the use of RDF/OWL as a formal representation of roles may be used to support future extensibility. Standard RDF/OWL mechanisms can be used to define new roles that inherit from the roles defined in this specification. The mechanism to define and use role extensions in an interoperable manner, however, is not defined by this specification. A future version of ARIA is expected to define how to extend roles.

1.1. Scope

The goals of this specification include:

This draft currently handles two aspects of roles: user interface functionality and structural relationships. For more information, see the WAI-ARIA Primer [ARIA-PRIMER] for the use of roles in making interactive content accessible.

The role taxonomy is designed in part to support the common roles found in platform accessibility APIs. Reference to roles found in this taxonomy by dynamic Web content may be used to support interoperability with assistive technologies.

The schema to support this standard has been designed to be extensible so that custom roles can be created by extending base roles. This allows user agents to support at least the base role, and user agents that support the custom role can provide enhanced access. Note that much of this could be formalized in XML Schema [XSD]. However, being able to define similarities between roles, such as baseConcepts and more descriptive definitions, would not be available in XSD. While this extensibility is possible, this version of the specification does not define how this extension is to be achieved.

WAI-ARIA is supported by a set of informative resources. In addition to the WAI-ARIA Roadmap, the WAI-ARIA Primer [ARIA-PRIMER] provides a basic introduction to the concepts behind and reason for ARIA, and the WAI-ARIA Best Practices [ARIA-PRACTICES] describe recommended usage patterns for Web content developers. These documents are intended to help authors learn the practice of putting WAI-ARIA to use.

1.2. Use Cases

Keyboard accessible content helps users of alternate input devices. The new semantics when combined by our style guide work will allow alternate input solutions to facilitate command and control via an alternate input solution.

ARIA introduces navigation landmarks through its taxonomy and the XHTML role landmarks, which helps persons with dexterity and vision impairments by providing for improved keyboard navigation. ARIA may also be used to assist persons with cognitive learning disabilities. The additional semantics allow authors to restructure and substitute alternative content as needed.

Assistive technology needs the ability to support alternative inputs by getting and setting the current value of widgets. Assistive technology also needs to determine what objects are selected and manage widgets that allow multiple selections.

ARIA is intended to be used as a supplement for native language semantics, not a replacement. When the host language provides a feature that is equivalent to the ARIA feature, use the host language feature. ARIA should only be used in cases where the host language lacks the needed role, state, or property indicator. First use a host language feature that is as similar as possible to the ARIA feature, then refine the meaning by adding ARIA. For instance, a multi-selectable grid could be implemented as a table, and then ARIA used to clarify that it is a grid, not just a table. This allows for the best possible fallback for user agents that do not support ARIA and preserves the integrity of the host language semantics.

2. Using WAI-ARIA

This section is informative.

Complex web applications become inaccessible when assistive technologies cannot determine the semantics behind portions of a document or when the user is unable to effectively navigate to all parts of it in a usable way (see the Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications [ARIA-ROADMAP]). ARIA divides the semantics into roles (the type defining a user interface element) and states and properties supported by the roles.

Authors must associate elements in the document to an ARIA role and the appropriate states and properties (aria-* attributes) during its life-cycle.

2.1. WAI-ARIA Roles

An ARIA role is set on an element using a role attribute, similar to the role attribute defined in the XHTML Role Attribute Module [XHTML-ROLES].

<li role="menuitem">Open file…</li>

The roles defined in this specification include a collection of document landmarks and the ARIA role taxonomy.

The roles in this taxonomy were modeled using RDF/OWL [OWL] to document expected behaviors of each role. Features of the role taxonomy provide the following information for each role:

Attaching a role gives assistive technology information about how to handle each element.

2.2. WAI-ARIA States and Properties

ARIA provides a collection of accessibility states and properties which are used to support platform accessibility APIs on the various operating system platforms. Assistive technology may access this information through an exposed user agent DOM or through a mapping to the platform accessibility API. When combined with roles, the user agent can supply the assistive technology with information to render the information to the user at any instance in time. Changes in states or properties will result in a notification to the assistive technology, which may alert the user that a change has occurred.

In the following example, an li has been used to create a checkable menu item, and JavaScript events will capture mouse and keyboard events to toggle value of aria-checked. A role is used to make the behavior of this simple widget known to the user agent. Attributes that change with user actions (such as aria-checked) are defined in the states and properties section.

<li role="menuitemcheckbox" aria-checked="true">Sort by Last Modified</li>

Some accessibility states, called managed states, are controlled by the user agent. Examples of managed state include keyboard focus and selection. Managed states often have corresponding CSS pseudo-classes (such as :focus and ::selection) to define style changes. In contrast, the states in this specification are typically controlled by the author and are called unmanaged states. Some states managed by the user agent, such as aria-posinset and aria-setsize, can be overridden by web application authors, but the author should only override them if the DOM is incomplete and would cause the user agent calculation to be incorrect. User agents map both managed and unmanaged states to the platform accessibility APIs.

Most modern user agents support CSS attribute selectors ([CSS], Section 5.8), and can allow the author to create UI changes based on ARIA attribute information, reducing the amount of scripts necessary to achieve equivalent functionality. In the following example, a CSS selector is used to determine whether or not an image of a check mark is shown, based on the value of the aria-checked attribute.

[aria-checked="true"]:before { background-image: url(checked.gif); }

Note: At the time of this writing, this CSS example, while technically correct, will not redraw styles properly in some browsers if the attribute's value is changed dynamically. It may be necessary to toggle a classname, or otherwise to force the browser to redraw the styles properly.

2.3. Managing Focus

An application should always have an element with focus, as applications require users to have a place to provide user input. The element with focus should not be destroyed, hidden, or scrolled off screen. All interactive elements should be focusable. There should be an obvious, discoverable way, either through tabbing or other standard navigation techniques, for keyboard users to move the focus to any interactive element. See User Agent Accessibility Guidelines, Guideline 9 ([UAAG], Guideline 9).

When using standard (X)HTML and basic WAI-ARIA widgets, application developers can simply manipulate the tab order or use a script to create keyboard shortcuts to elements in the document. Use of more complex widgets requires the author to manage focus within them.

WAI-ARIA includes a number of “managing container” widgets, also known as “composite” widgets. Typically, the container is responsible for tracking the last descendant which was active (the default is usually the first item in the container). When a previously focused container is refocused, the new active descendant should be the same element as the active descendant when the container was last focused. For example, if the second item of a tree group was the active descendant when the user tabbed out of the tree group, then the second item of the tree group remains the active descendant when the tree group gets focus again. The user may also activate the container by clicking on one of the descendants within it.

When something in the container has focus, the user may navigate through the container by pressing additional keys such as the arrow keys to move relative to the current item. Any additional press of the main navigation key (generally the Tab key) will move out of the container to the next widget.

For example, a grid may be used as a spreadsheet with thousands of gridcells, all of which may not be present in the document at one time. This requires their focus to be managed by the container using the aria-activedescendant property, on the managing container element, or by the container managing the tabindex of its child elements and setting focus on the appropriate child. For more information, see Providing Keyboard Focus in WAI-ARIA Best Practices ([ARIA-PRACTICES], section 3.2).

Containers that manage focus in this way are:

2.4. Building Accessible Applications with WAI-ARIA

This section provides a brief introduction to the process of making applications accessible using ARIA. The choice and usage of roles can be complex and context dependent. It is beyond the scope of this document to explain implementations for all the possible ARIA use cases. ARIA Best Practices [ARIA-PRACTICES] provides detailed guidance on ARIA implementation methodology as well as references to sample code.

First steps to making an application accessible:

  1. Each element or widget has correct and complete semantics that fully describe its behavior (using element names or roles);
  2. The relationships between elements and groups are defined;
  3. States, properties, and container relationships are valid for each element's behavior and are accessible via the Document Object Model [DOM] and the platform accessibility API; and
  4. There is an element with input focus.

ARIA provides authors with the means to make the different elements in a Web application semantically rich. User agents use the role semantics to understand how to handle each element. Roles convey additional information that the assistive technology needs to anticipate the behavior of the elements inside the application such as how to present the corresponding ARIA states and properties to the user. The user agent will use the accessibility semantics from the host language and ARIA accessibility semantics (which may augment or override those of the host language) and present them to an assistive technology through the Document Object Model or the platform accessibility API. The user agent will create an accessible representation of each element in the Web page, and will use the appropriate accessibility API to notify assistive technology of changes to the semantics of those elements.

The following steps are recommended as ARIA is applied to content:

  1. Use native markup when possible.

    Use the semantic elements that are defined in the host markup language. For example, with XHTML it is better to use the native checkbox than to use a div element with role checkbox as these should already be accessible through your browser. There may also be cases where ARIA can augment an existing element in the host language. For example, a grid and gridcells can reuse the functionality of a table when overlaying it. ARIA roles, states, and properties are best used when the markup language does not support all the semantics required. When a role attribute is added to an element, the semantics and behavior of the element are augmented or overridden by the role behavior.

  2. Apply the appropriate roles.

    Set roles to make sure elements behave predictably and correctly describe the behavior of each element within the application, unless element behaviors are fully described by the native markup language. Roles for interactive elements should support all the attributes that the element could use. Once a role attribute is set it should not be changed as this may confuse the end user. This does not preclude an element being removed which has the role attribute set, but only states and properties (aria-* attributes) should be changed for a given element.

  3. Preserve semantic structure.

    Structural information is critical to providing context to persons with disabilities. Preserve DOM hierarchy within structural elements and widgets. Form logical groups within within user interface widgets, such as treeitem elements in a group. Look for groups within a page, and mark them using the most appropriate role that best describes their usage. For example, a region of the page that contains a group of elements that are likely to change through an Ajax application could be specified as a live region, through the use of the aria-live attribute. Facilitate keyboard navigation through the use of document landmarks; full keyboard access and document semantics help everyone, including vision-impaired users, dexterity-impaired users, and even users with cognitive or learning impairments.

  4. Build relationships.

    Look for relationships between elements, and mark them using the most appropriate property or attribute. For example, if a page contains both a search form and search results region, mark each container as a region and set the aria-controls property of the search form to reference the search results. See relationships in WAI-ARIA.

    Some relationships are determined automatically from the host language, like label elements associated with input elements in HTML.

  5. Set states and properties in response to events.

    Once the role for an element has been set, change states and properties as appropriate during the element's life cycle, usually in response to user input events. Only use attributes supported for the chosen role or element.

    TODO: Next paragraph seems normative; shouldn't it be informative? Also, phrased awkwardly. Even though the properties aren't likely to change, The UA should always send a notification to the AT when any state or property changes. (Resolved: this is informative data about the normative reqs, just make sure the normative reqs are in implementors guide)

    User agents should notify assistive technology of state changes. Conversely, assistive technology notification of property changes depends on the method by which an assistive technology communicates with the user agent. For example, the aria-multiline property is not something that changes frequently, whereas the aria-checked state changes frequently in response to user input.

  6. Support full, usable keyboard navigation.

    Usable keyboard navigation in a rich internet application is different from the tabbing paradigm in a static document. Rich internet applications behave more like desktop applications where the user tabs to significant widgets and uses the arrow keys to navigate within a complex widget, such as a menu or spreadsheet. The changes that ARIA introduces in keyboard navigation makes this enhanced accessibility possible. For a more in-depth understanding of keyboard navigation in ARIA, see the ARIA Best Practices [ARIA-PRACTICES]

  7. Synchronize the visual interface with the accessible interface.

    This will allow the state of your UI to be perceivable to the user as well as the assistive technology. For example, the author should have an associated selector that responds to a required form element (using aria-required) or a selected gridcell (using aria-selected). Authors may choose to achieve visual synchronization of these interface elements by using a script or by the use CSS attribute selectors. Refer to the ARIA Best Practices [ARIA-PRACTICES] for techniques for proper UI synchronization with the accessible state of the document.

2.5. Example: building a tree widget

Graphic of an example tree view.

A basic tree view allows the user to select different list items and expand and collapse embedded lists. Arrow keys are used to navigate through a tree, including left/right to collapse/expand sub trees. Double clicking with the mouse also toggles expansion.

To make this feature accessible we need to:

Following the steps below:

  1. Look at the native markup language

    Although standard list behavior is supported by the native ul and li elements in HTML, there is no element that natively supports list expansion and selection. Since there is not, we will need to use roles.

  2. Finding the right roles

    Since there is no native tree element in HTML, we need to add roles from this taxonomy that support the additional states and properties needed. The roles that support tree behavior are:

    • tree: A tree is the main container element for our tree. It is a form of a select where sub-level groups of treeitems may be collapsed and expanded.
    • treeitem: A treeitem is an option item of a tree. This is an element within a tree; sub-level groups of treeitems may be expanded or collapsed.
    • group: A group encloses a set of sub-level treeitems.
  3. Look for groups and build relationships

    Tree relationships can be made simply via the DOM and logical structure of the page. A tree element will be the main container encompassing all other elements in the tree. Each selectable item in the tree will be a treeitem.

    When a treeitem contains an embedded list of treeitems they will be all embedded in a group. A group should be contained inside the tree item that is the parent item.

    <h1 id="treelabel">ARIA Tree Example</h1>
    <ul role="tree" aria-labelledby="treelabel" aria-activedescendant="example_id" tabindex="0">
      <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="true">Animals
        <ul role="group">
          <li role="treeitem">Birds</li>
          <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="false">Cats
            <ul role="group">
              <li role="treeitem">Siamese</li>
              <li role="treeitem">Tabby</li>
            </ul>
          </li>
          <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="true">Dogs
            <ul role="group">
              <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="true">Small Breeds
                <ul role="group">
                  <li role="treeitem">Chihuahua</li>
                  <li role="treeitem" id="example_id">Italian Greyhound</li>
                  <li role="treeitem">Japanese Chin</li>
                </ul>
              </li>
              <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="false">Medium Breeds
                <ul role="group">
                  <li role="treeitem">Beagle</li>
                  <li role="treeitem">Cocker Spaniel</li>
                  <li role="treeitem">Pit Bull</li>
                </ul>
              </li>
              <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="false">Large Breeds
                <ul role="group">
                  <li role="treeitem">Afghan</li>
                  <li role="treeitem">Great Dane</li>
                  <li role="treeitem">Mastiff</li>
                </ul>
              </li>
            </ul>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="true">Minerals
        <ul role="group">
          <li role="treeitem">Zinc</li>
          <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="false">Gold
            <ul role="group">
              <li role="treeitem">Yellow Gold</li>
              <li role="treeitem">White Gold</li>
            </ul>
          </li>
          <li role="treeitem">Silver</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li role="treeitem" aria-expanded="true">Vegetables
        <ul role="group">
          <li role="treeitem">Carrot</li>
          <li role="treeitem">Tomato</li>
          <li role="treeitem">Lettuce</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
    [aria-expanded="false"] [role="group"] { display: none; }

    Note: At the time of this writing, this CSS example, while technically correct, will not redraw styles properly in some browsers if the attribute's value is changed dynamically. It may be necessary to toggle a classname, or otherwise to force the browser to redraw the styles properly.

    Sometimes a tree structure is not explicit via the DOM and logical structure of a page. In such cases the relationships must still be made explicit using the states and properties. In the following example, the aria-owns property indicates that the item with id "yellowtreegroup" should be considered a child of the div element with the property, even though it is not a child in the DOM.

    <div role="treeitem" aria-owns="yellowtreegroup">Yellow<div><div id="yellowtreegroup" role="group">
      <div role="treeitem">Bell peppers</div>
      <div role="treeitem">Squash</div>
    </div>

    If the tree is not completely represented in the DOM at all times, don't use either the structured or aria-owns methods. Instead use aria-level, aria-posinset and aria-setsize.

  4. Use states and properties in response to events

    Control the behavior of the element in response to user input events such as from the keyboard and the mouse. For example, a tree control will need to respond to click events on the expand/collapse triggers, and key events on the currently active descendant. Use device-independent events with supporting JavaScript to handle user interaction.

3. Normative Requirements

This section is normative.

This specification indicates whether a section is normative or informative.

Normative sections provide requirements that must be followed for an implementation to conform to this specification. The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL in this document are to be interpreted as described in Keywords for use in RFCs to indicate requirement levels [RFC2119].

Informative sections provide information useful to understanding the specification. Such sections may contain examples of recommended practice, but it is not required to follow such recommendations in order to conform to this specification.

4. The Roles Model

This section is normative.

This section defines the WAI-ARIA role taxonomy and describes the characteristics and properties of all roles. A formal RDF representation of all the information presented here is available in Appendix 8.1: Implementation.

4.1. Relationships between concepts

The role taxonomy uses the following relationships to relate ARIA roles to each other and to concepts from other specifications, such as HTML and XForms.

4.1.1. Parent Roles

RDF Property
rdfs:subClassOf

The role that this role extends in the taxonomy. This extension causes all the properties and constraints of the parent role to propagate to the child role. Other than well known stable specifications, inheritance may be restricted to items defined inside this specification so that items cannot be changed and affect inherited classes.

For example: the checkbox role is a subclass or type of the option role. If we change the properties and expected behavior of an option then the properties and behavior of checkbox will also change.

Inheritance is expressed in RDF using the RDF Schema subClassOf ([RDFS], section 3.4) property.

4.1.2. Child Roles

RDF Property
<none>

Informative list of roles for which this role is the parent. This is provided to facilitate reading of the specification but adds no new information.

4.1.3. Related Concepts

RDF Property
role:relatedConcept

Informative data about a similar or related idea from other specifications. Concepts that are related are not necessarily identical. Related concepts do not inherit properties from each other. Hence if the definition of a type changes, the properties, behavior, and definition of a related concept is not affected.

For example, a progress bar is like an status indicator. Therefore, the progressbar widget has a role:relatedConcept value which includes status. However if the definition of status is modified, the definition of a progressbar will not be affected.

Editorial Note: mention that relatedConcept doesn't imply inheritance.

4.1.4. Base Concept

RDF Property
role:baseConcept

Informative data about objects that are considered prototypes for the role. Base concept is similar to type, but without inheritance of limitations and properties. Base concepts are designed as a substitute for inheritance for external concepts. A base concept is like a relatedConcept except that base concepts are almost identical to each other.

For example: the checkbox defined in this document has similar functionality and the same anticipated behavior as a checkbox defined in HTML.

Therefore, a checkbox has an HTML checkbox as a baseConcept. However, if the HTML checkbox is modified, the definition of a checkbox in this document will not be not affected, because there is no actual inheritance of type.

4.2. Characteristics of Roles

Roles are defined and described by their characteristics. Characteristics define the structural function of a role, such as what a role is, concepts behind it, what instances of the role can or must contain. In the case of widgets this also includes how it interacts with the user agent based on mapping to HTML forms and XForms. States and properties from WAI-ARIA that are supported by the role are also indicated.

The Roles Taxonomy defines the following characteristics. These characteristics are implemented in RDF as properties of the OWL classes that describe the roles.

4.2.1. Abstract Roles (Is Abstract)

RDF Property
N/A
Values
Boolean

Abstract roles are the foundation upon which all other ARIA roles are built. They SHOULD NOT be used by authors because they are not implemented in the API binding. Abstract roles are provided to help with the following:

  1. Organize the role taxonomy and provide roles with a meaning in the context of known concepts.
  2. Streamline the addition of roles that include necessary features.

4.2.2. Required States and Properties

RDF Property
role:supportedState

Editorial Note: should the RDF property be changed to indicate a required state? If left as role:supportedState, add note to indicate that was the intention. Michael thinks we should subclass supportedState.

Values
Any valid RDF object reference, such as a URI or an RDF ID reference.

States and properties specifically required for the role and child roles. Content authors SHOULD provide values for required states and properties.

When an object inherits from multiple ancestors and one ancestor indicates that property is supported while another ancestor indicates that it is required, the property is required in the inheriting object.

4.2.3. Supported States and Properties

RDF Property
role:supportedState
Values
Any valid RDF object reference, such as a URI or an RDF ID reference.

States and properties specifically applicable to the role and child roles. User agents MUST implement all supported states and properties for the role. Content authors MAY provide values for supported states and properties, but may not in all cases because default values are sufficient.

4.2.4. Inherited States and Properties

Informative list of properties that are inherited onto a role from ancestor roles. States and properties are inherited from ancestor roles in the role taxonomy, not from ancestor elements in the DOM tree. These properties are not explicitly defined on the role, as the inheritance of properties is automatic. This information is provided to facilitate reading of the specification. Inherited states and properties that are required are indicated as such in this field as well. The set of supported states and properties combined with inherited states and properties forms the full set of states and properties supported by the role.

4.2.5. Required Child Elements

RDF Property
role:mustContain
Values
Any valid RDF object reference, such as a URI or an RDF ID reference.

An ARIA child element that must be contained in the DOM by the element with this role. For example, an element with the role list must contain (or own) an element with the role listitem.

Editorial Note: I wrote this note to deconfuse the difference between an "ARIA child element" and a "DOM child element." It's somewhat awkwardly phrased and still needs to be run by the group. We should define this "owned child" term in the glossary, so we can use it throughout the document.

Note: This specification distinguishes between an ARIA child element and a DOM child element. An 'owned element' of an ARIA role is any DOM descendant of the element, any element specified as a child via aria-owns, or any DOM descendant of the owned child. An ARIA child element is any owned element with an allowed child role.

Note: When multiple roles are specified as "Required Child Elements" for a role, at least one instance of one required child element is required. This specification does NOT require an instance of each of the listed child roles. For example, a menu should have at least one instance of a menuitem, menuitemcheckbox, or menuitemradio. The menu role does not require one instance of each.

4.2.6. Parent Element

RDF Property
role:scope
Values
Any valid RDF object reference, such as a URI or an RDF ID reference.

The parent element defines the context where this role is allowed, in other words, roles for elements in which the present role SHOULD appear.

For example an element with role listitem SHOULD be contained inside an element with role list.

4.2.7. Accessible Name Calculation (nameFrom)

RDF Property
role:nameFrom
Values
One of the following values:
  1. author: name comes from values provided by the author in explicit markup features such as the aria-label property, aria-labelledby property, or the HTML title attribute.
  2. contents: name comes from the text value of the element node. Although this may be allowed in addition to "author" in some roles, this is used in content only if "author" features are not provided.

User agents MUST use the following approach to compute the accessible name for an element. Start with an empty string:

  1. Prepend a space if necessary. If the current node is an element and is not styled with display: inline, append a space character if the name result string is not currently empty. This last space character should be trimmed if the entire name computation for an element yields no other results.
  2. Compute the name string for the current node:
    1. If the current node is hidden and its ID is not explicitly pointed to for this calculation with aria-labelledby or aria-describedby, then skip the current node.
    2. Else if the current node is a text node, append the text contents. Whitespace may be normalized.
    3. Else if aria-label is present, use the value of the aria-label property for the accessible name.
    4. Else if aria-labelledby is present, and this node is the root node for the current name calculation, and was not arrived at via another aria-labelledby, then process using aria-labelledby to generate the name for this node. Within the aria-labelledby value, process the IDs in the order they occur and ignore IDs in that are not specified on an element in the document. For each element matching one of the IDs, recursively implement this name computation starting with step 1, appending the results to the total name result string as they are collected.
    5. Else if the native markup provides a text equivalent, append it to the accessible name. An example of a native markup text equivalent is alt for HTML <img>.
    6. If the current node is not at the beginning or end of a name computation, append the current value for the node.
    7. If the accessible name text for this node is not empty, and the current node's role allows "Name From: contents", recursively implement this name computation for each child, starting with step 1, appending the results to the total name result string as they are collected. If this recursion only produces white space, consider the name text for the current node to be empty, and use the following rule instead.
    8. Else if the accessible name text for this node is still empty, use the tooltip attribute for the given markup language (e.g. title in HTML, tooltiptext in XUL) of the current node.
  3. Append a space if necessary. If the current node is an element and is not styled with display: inline, append a space character. This last space character should be trimmed if the entire name computation for an element yields no other results.

4.2.8. Children Presentational

RDF Property
role:childrenArePresentational
Values

Boolean (true | false)

The DOM descendants are presentational. User agents SHOULD NOT expose descendants of this element through the platform accessibility API. If user agents do not hide the descendant nodes, some information may be read twice.

4.3. Global States and Properties

Some states and properties are applicable to all roles, and most are applicable to all elements, regardless of role. In addition to explicitly expressed supported states and properties, the following global states and properties are supported by all roles.

Global states and properties are applied to the role roletype, which is the base role, and therefore inherit into all roles. To facilitate reading, they are not explicitly identified as either supported or inherited states and properties in the specification. Instead, the inheritance is indicated by a link to this section.

4.4. Categorization of Roles

To support the current user scenario, this specification categorizes roles that define user interface widgets (sliders, tree controls, etc.) and those that define page structure (sections, navigation, etc.).

Class diagram of the relationships described in the role data model

Class diagram of the relationships described in the role data model.

View larger version of class diagram

Roles are categorized as follows:

  1. Base Types
  2. User Input Widgets
  3. User Interface Elements
  4. Document Structure
  5. Specialized Regions
  6. Landmark Roles Inherited from the XHTML Role Attribute Module
  7. Section Roles inherited from XHTML Role Attribute Module

4.4.1. Base Types

The following roles are used as base types for applied roles. Base classes are used to build a picture of the role taxonomy class hierarchy. Note that while all roles in this section are abstract, not all abstract roles are in this section. This section includes only the most high-level abstractions in the taxonomy.

Note: Abstract roles are used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use abstract roles in content.

4.4.2. User Input Widgets

These roles act as form elements or other common user interface widgets used to collect and maintain user input.

4.4.3. User Interface Elements

These roles are used as part of the graphical user interface.

4.4.4. Document Structure

These roles describe structures that organize content in a page. Document structures are not usually interactive.

4.4.5. Application Structure

These are special, self-contained areas of application user interfaces.

4.4.6. Landmark Roles Inherited from the XHTML Role Attribute Module

This section lists roles imported from the XHTML Role Attribute Module [XHTML-ROLES, Section 4]. These roles are included here in order to make them clearly part of the ARIA Role taxonomy. Role descriptions are taken from the description provided in the XHTML Role Attribute Module.

4.5. Definition of Roles

Below is an alphabetical list of ARIA roles to be used by rich internet application authors.

Note: Abstract roles are used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use abstract roles in content.

alert
A message with important, and usually time-sensitive, information.
alertdialog
A type of dialog that contains an alert message, where initial focus goes to the dialog or an element within it. Also see dialog.
application
A region declared as a Web application, as opposed to a Web document.
article
A section of a page consisting of an independent part of a document, page, or site.
banner
A region that contains the primary heading or Web site title.
button
A widget that allows for user-triggered actions when clicked or pressed.
checkbox
A widget that has three possible values: true, false, or mixed.
columnheader
A cell containing header information for a column.
combobox
A presentation of a select; usually similar to a textbox where users can type ahead to select an option, or type to enter arbitrary text as a new item in the list.
complementary
A supporting section of the document that remains meaningful even when separated from the main content.
composite (abstract role)
A widget that may contain navigable descendants or owned children.
contentinfo
Metadata that applies to the parent document.
definition
A definition of a term or concept.
dialog
A dialog is an application window that is designed to interrupt the current processing of an application in order to prompt the user to enter information or require a response. Also see alertdialog.
directory
A list of references to members of a group, such as a static table of contents.
document
A region containing related information that is declared as document content, as opposed to a Web application.
grid
A grid contains cells of tabular data arranged in rows and columns, like a table.
gridcell
A cell in a grid or treegrid.
group
A set of user interface objects which would not be included in a page summary or table of contents by an assistive technology.
heading
A heading for a section of the page.
img
A container for a collection of elements that form an image.
input (abstract role)
A generic type of widget that allows user input.
landmark
Todo: @@
link
An interactive reference to an internal or external resource.
list
A group of non-interactive list items.
listbox
A widget that allows the user to select one or more items from a list of choices.
listitem
A single item in a list, listbox, or directory.
log
A type of live region where new information is added in meaningful order and old information may disappear. Also see marquee.
main
The main content of a document.
marquee
A type of live region where non-essential information changes frequently. Also see log.
math
An element that represents a mathematical expression.
menu
A type of widget that offers a list of choices to the user.
menubar
A presentation of menu that usually remains visible and is usually presented horizontally.
menuitem
An option in a group of choices contained by a menu or menubar.
menuitemcheckbox
A menuitem that is checkable.
menuitemradio
A checkable menuitem in a group of menuitemradio roles, only one of which can be checked at a time.
navigation
A collection of navigational elements (usually links) for navigating the document or related documents.
note
A section whose content is parenthetic or ancillary to the main content of the resource.
option
A selectable item in a select list.
presentation
An element whose role is presentational, and does not need to be mapped to the accessibility API.
progressbar
An element that displays the progress status for tasks that take a long time.
radio
An option in single-select list.
radiogroup
A group of radio buttons.
range (abstract role)
An input representing a range of values that can be set by the user.
region
A large perceivable section of a Web page or document, that the author feels should be included in a summary of page features.
roletype (abstract role)
The base role from which all other roles in this taxonomy inherit.
row
A row of grid cells.
rowheader
A grid cell containing header information for a row.
search
The search tool of a web document.
section (abstract role)
A renderable structural containment unit in a document or application.
sectionhead (abstract role)
A structure that labels or summarizes the topic of its related section.
select (abstract role)
A form widget that allows the user to make selections from a set of choices.
separator
A divider that separates and distinguishes sections of content or groups of menuitems.
slider
A user input where the user selects a value from within a given range.
spinbutton
A form of range that expects a user to select from amongst discrete choices.
status
A container whose content is advisory information for the user.
structure (abstract role)
A document structural element.
tab
A header for a tabpanel.
tablist
A list of tab elements, which are references to tabpanel elements.
tabpanel
A container for the resources associated with a tab.
textbox
Inputs that allow free-form text as their value.
timer
A numerical counter which indicates an amount of elapsed time from a start point, or the time remaining until an end point.
toolbar
A collection of commonly used function buttons represented in compact visual form.
tooltip
A contextual popup that displays a description for an element in a mouse hover or keyboard focused state. Supplement to the normal tooltip processing of the user agent.
tree
A type of list that may contain sub-level nested groups that can be collapsed and expanded.
treegrid
A grid whose rows can be expanded and collapsed in the same manner as for a tree.
treeitem
An option item of a tree. This is an element within a tree that may be expanded or collapsed if it contains a sub-level group of treeitems.
widget (abstract role)
An interactive component of a graphical user interface (GUI).
window (abstract role)
A browser or application window.

alert (role)

A message with important, and usually time-sensitive, information.

Alerts are used to convey messages to alert the user. In the case of audio warnings this is an accessible alternative for a hearing-impaired user. The alert role goes on the node containing the alert message. Alerts are specialized forms of the status role, which should be processed as an atomic live region.

Alerts do not require user input and therefore should not receive focus. Since alerts do not receive focus users SHOULD NOT be required to close an alert. The user agent MAY fire an accessibility alert event, when the alert is created, provided one is specified by the intended accessibility API. If an alert requires focus to close the alert, then an alertdialog SHOULD be used instead.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:region
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

alertdialog (role)

A type of dialog that contains an alert message, where initial focus goes to the dialog or an element within it. Also see dialog.

Alert dialogs are used to convey messages to alert the user. The alertdialog role goes on the node containing both the alert message and the rest of the dialog.

Unlike alert, alertdialog can receive a response from the user. For example, to confirm that the user understands the alert being generated. When the alert dialog is displayed, authors SHOULD set focus to an active element within the alert dialog, such as a form edit field or an OK button. The user agent MAY fire an accessibility alert event, when the alert is created, provided one is specified by the intended accessibility API.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

application (role)

A region declared as a Web application, as opposed to a Web document.

The intent is to hint to the assistive technology to switch its normal browsing mode functionality to one in which they would for an application. User agents have a browse navigation mode where keys, such as up and down arrows, are used to browse the document. This native behavior prevents the use of these keys by a Web application.

An author should set the role of application on the element that encompasses the entire application. If the application role applies to the entire Web page, it should be set on the root node for content, such as the body element in HTML or svg element in SVG.

For example, an email application has a document and an application in it. The author would want to use typical application navigation mode to cycle through the list of emails, and much of this navigation would be defined by the application author. However, when reading an email message the content should appear in a region with a document role in order to use browsing navigation.

All non-decorative static text or image content inside the application SHOULD be either associated with a form widget or group via aria-label, aria-labelledby, or aria-describedby, or separated out into an element with role of document or article.

Applications SHOULD have an application title or label. This should be suitable for use as a navigation preview or table-of-contents entry for the page section in question. The label SHOULD come from one of the following sources:

  • If the application includes the entire contents of the Web page, use the host language feature for title or label, such as the title element in HTML, which labels the entire file.
  • Otherwise, use the standard accessible name calculation.
Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:landmark
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

article (role)

A section of a page consisting of an independent part of a document, page, or site.

An article could be a forum post, a magazine or newspaper article, a Web log entry, a user-submitted comment, or any other independent item of content. It is independent in that its contents could stand alone, for example in syndication. However, the element is still associated with its ancestors; for instance, contact information that applies to a parent body element still covers the article as well. When nesting articles, the child articles represent content that is related to the content of the parent article. For instance, a Web log entry on a site that accepts user-submitted comments could represent the comments as articles nested within the article for the Web log entry. Author, heading, date or other information associated with an article does not apply to nested articles.

Assistive technologies must treat and article like a document in that article must must be processed like an application. Unlike a document, the use of articles allows the user to identify and follow related articles based on the nesting.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author


button (role)

A widget that allows for user-triggered actions when clicked or pressed.

Buttons are mostly used for discrete, atomic actions. Standardizing the appearance of buttons enhances a user's recognition of the widgets as buttons and allows for a more compact display in toolbars.

Buttons support the optional attribute aria-pressed. Buttons with a non-empty aria-pressed attribute are toggle buttons. When aria-pressed is true the button is in a "pressed" state, when aria-pressed is false it is not pressed. If the attribute is not present, the button is a simple command button.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:input
Base Concept:HTML button
Supported States and Properties:aria-pressed
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True
Children Presentational:True

checkbox (role)

A widget that has three possible values: true, false, or mixed.

Many checkboxes do not use the "mixed" value, and thus are effectively boolean checkboxes. However, the aria-checked state supports the mixed value to support cases such as installers where an option has been partially installed.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:input
Child Roles:
Required States and Properties:aria-checked
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

columnheader (role)

A cell containing header information for a column.

Columnheader can be used as a column header in a table or grid. It could also be used in a pie chart to show a similar relationship in the data.

The columnheader establishes a relationship between it and all cells in the corresponding column. It is the structural equivalent to an HTML th element with a column scope.

Note: because grid cells are organized into rows, there is not a single container element for the column. The column is the set of gridcells in a particular position within their respective row containers.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Base Concept:HTML th with scope=col
Parent Element:row
Supported States and Properties:aria-sort
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

combobox (role)

A presentation of a select; usually similar to a textbox where users can type ahead to select an option, or type to enter arbitrary text as a new item in the list.

Combobox is the combined presentation of a single line textbox with a drop down select widget . The combobox may be editable. Typically editable combo boxes are used for autocomplete behavior, and the autocomplete property may be used on the child textbox.

NOTE: In XForms [XFORMS] the same select can have one of 3 appearances: combo-box, drop-down box, or group of radio-buttons. Many browsers allow users to type in a drop-down select as well. This specification does not constrain the presentation of the combobox.

To be keyboard accessible, instances of this role SHOULD manage focus of descendants, as described in Managing Focus.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:select
Required Child Elements:listbox
Required States and Properties:aria-expanded
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

complementary (role)

A supporting section of the document that remains meaningful even when separated from the main content.

There are various types of content that would appropriately have this role. For example, in the case of a portal, this may include but not be limited to show times, current weather, related articles, or stocks to watch. The content should be relevant to the main content; if it is completely separable, a more general role should be used instead.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:landmark
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

composite (abstract role)

A widget that may contain navigable descendants or owned children.

The composite widget SHOULD exist as a single navigation stop within the larger navigation system of the web page. Once the composite widget has focus, it SHOULD provide a separate navigation mechanism for users to document elements that are descendants or owned children of the composite element.

Note: composite is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:widget
Child Roles:
Supported States and Properties:aria-activedescendant
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Children Presentational:False

contentinfo (role)

Metadata that applies to the parent document.

For example, footnotes, copyrights, and links to privacy statements would belong here.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:landmark
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

definition (role)

A definition of a term or concept.

A role is not provided to specify the term being defined, although host languages may provide such an element; in HTML this is the dfn or dt element. The defined term should be included in such an element even when occurring within an element having the definition role.

Editorial Note: Clear up awkward wording of previous sentence. Perhaps "If a host language has an appropriate element for the term (eg. dt or dfn in html), the term should be included in that elm, even when in the definition."

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

dialog (role)

A dialog is an application window that is designed to interrupt the current processing of an application in order to prompt the user to enter information or require a response. Also see alertdialog.

Dialog boxes SHOULD have a title, which may be provided with the aria-label or aria-labelledby property if other mechanisms are not available. They SHOULD have a focused descendant element that has keyboard focus.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:window
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

directory (role)

A list of references to members of a group, such as a static table of contents.

Authors SHOULD use this role for a static table of contents, whether linked or unlinked. This includes tables of contents built with lists, including nested lists. Dynamic tables of contents, however, might use a tree role instead.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:list
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author

document (role)

A region containing related information that is declared as document content, as opposed to a Web application.

The document role informs user agents of the need to augment browser keyboard support in order to allow users to visit and read any content within the document region. In contrast, additional commands are not necessary for screen reader users to read text within a region with role="application", where all text should be semantically associated with focusable elements. An important trait of documents is that they have some text which is not associated with widgets or groups thereof.

An author should set the role of document on the element that encompasses the entire document. If the document role applies to the entire Web page, it should be set on the root node for content, such as the body element in HTML or svg element in SVG.

For example, an email application has a document and an application in it. The author would want to use typical application navigation mode to cycle through the list of emails, and much of this navigation would be defined by the application author. However, when reading an email message the content should appear in a region with a document role in order to use browsing navigation.

Documents SHOULD have a document title or label. This should be suitable for use as a navigation preview or table-of-contents entry for the page section in question. The label SHOULD come from one of the following sources:

  • If the document includes the entire contents of the Web page, use the host language feature for title or label, such as the title element in HTML, which labels the entire file.
  • Otherwise, use the standard accessible name calculation.
Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:structure
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From: author
Accessible Name Required:True

grid (role)

A grid contains cells of tabular data arranged in rows and columns, like a table.

Grids do not necessarily imply presentation. The grid construct describes relationships between data such that it may be used for different presentations. Grids allow the user to move focus between grid cells with two dimensional navigation. For example, grid might be used as the invisible data model for a presentational chart .

Cells with role gridcell, SHOULD be contained in rows with role row, which in turn SHOULD be contained in a grid. Grid cells may be focusable. Grids may be empty, containing no rows or cells. Grids MAY have row and column headers, provided with rowheader and columnheader roles, which also assist the user agent in supporting navigation. Grid cells MAY have contents determined by a calculation.

Grid cells with the aria-selected state set can be selected for user interaction, and if the aria-multiselectable property of the grid is set to true, multiple cells in the grid may be selected. Grids may be used for spreadsheets like those in desktop spreadsheet applications.

To be keyboard accessible, instances of this role SHOULD manage focus of descendants, as described in Managing Focus.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Child Roles:
Base Concept:HTML table
Required Child Elements:row
Supported States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

gridcell (role)

A cell in a grid or treegrid.

Grid cells may be active, editable, and selectable. Cells may have relationships such as aria-controls to address the application of functional relationships.

If headers cannot be determined from the DOM structure, grid cells should explicitly indicate which header cells are relevant to them. They do this by referencing elements with role rowheader or columnheader using the aria-describedby property.

In a treegrid, cells MAY be expandable and use the aria-expanded state. If the aria-expanded property is provided, it applies only to the individual cell. It is not a proxy for the container row, which also can be expanded. The main use case for providing this property on a cell is pivot table type behavior.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Child Roles:
Base Concept:HTML td
Parent Element:row
Supported States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

group (role)

A set of user interface objects which would not be included in a page summary or table of contents by an assistive technology.

Contrast with region which is sections of user interface objects that should be included in a page summary or table of contents.

Authors should use a group to form logical collection of items in a widget such as children in a tree widget forming a collection of siblings in a hierarchy, or a collection of items having the same container in a directory. Therefore, proper handling of group by assistive technologies must be determined by the context in which it is provided.

Groups may also be nested. If the author believes a section is significant enough in terms of the entire delivery unit web page then the author should assign the section a role of region or a standard landmark role.

Group members that are not a DOM descendant of the group would need to have explicit relationships assigned to participate in the group using the aria-owns property.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Child Roles:
Supported States and Properties:aria-activedescendant
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From: author

heading (role)

A heading for a section of the page.

Often, headings will be referenced with the aria-labelledby property of the section for which they serve as a heading. If headings are organized into a logical outline, the aria-level property may be used to indicate the nesting level.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:sectionhead
Supported States and Properties:aria-level
Inherited States and Properties:
Accessible Name Required:True

img (role)

A container for a collection of elements that form an image.

An img can contain captions and descriptive text, as well as multiple image files that when viewed together give the impression of a single image. An img represents a single graphic within a document, whether or not it is formed by a collection of drawing objects. In order to be perceivable, elements with a role of img SHOULD have alternative text or a label associated by the accessible name calculation.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True
Children Presentational:True

input (abstract role)

A generic type of widget that allows user input.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:widget
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

landmark (role)

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:region
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:False


list (role)

A group of non-interactive list items.

Lists contain children whose role is listitem, or elements whose role is group which in turn contains children whose role is listitem.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:region
Child Roles:
Base Concept:HTML ul
Required Child Elements:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

listbox (role)

A widget that allows the user to select one or more items from a list of choices.

Items within the list are static and may contain images. List boxes contain children whose role is option.

Editorial Note: why does previous para mention images? Seems extraneous. Resolved. Instead mention image list as example. Mention that you can't have images in HTML select elements.

To be keyboard accessible, instances of this role SHOULD manage focus of descendants, as described in Managing Focus.

Although listbox inherits the aria-expanded state, if there is a use case to use that state, authors should consider using a combobox instead.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Required Child Elements:option
Supported States and Properties:aria-multiselectable
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

listitem (role)

A single item in a list, listbox, or directory.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Child Roles:
Base Concept:HTML li
Parent Element:list
Supported States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

log (role)

A type of live region where new information is added in meaningful order and old information may disappear. Also see marquee.

Examples include chat logs, messaging history, game log, or an error log. In contrast to other live regions, in this role there is a relationship between the arrival of new items in the log and the reading order. The log contains a meaningful sequence and new information is added only to the end of the log, not at arbitrary points.

Though the default value for aria-live is none, user agents MUST ensure elements with a log role value have an assumed default aria-live value of polite unless explicitly provided by the author.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:region
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From: author
Accessible Name Required:True

main (role)

The main content of a document.

This marks the content that is directly related to or expands upon the central topic of the document.

Within any document or application, the author SHOULD mark no more than one element with the main role.

Note: Because document and application elements can be nested in the DOM, they may have multiple main elements as DOM descendants, assuming each of those is associated with different document nodes, either by a DOM nesting (e.g., document within document) or by use of the aria-owns attribute.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:landmark
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

marquee (role)

A type of live region where non-essential information changes frequently. Also see log.

Common usages of marquee include stock tickers and ad banners. A marquee behaves like a live region with an assumed default aria-live property value of "off". An example of a marquee is a stock ticker. The primary difference between a marquee and a log is that logs usually have a meaningful sequence of more important content changes.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Inherited States and Properties:
Accessible Name Required:True

math (role)

An element that represents a mathematical expression.

This is for sections that represent math, such as images and ASCII art, but are not in a formal mathematical language like MathML. The math role allows the AT to assume that the alternative text be converted to Braille or TTS mathematics. In order to be perceivable, such images SHOULD be labeled by text that can be converted to an accessible format, using the aria-describedby property with a reference to a description of the math expression as it would be spoken. This is designed to facilitate conversion to speech. The text description should have no special markup used to control a speech device.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Children Presentational:True







note (role)

A section whose content is parenthetic or ancillary to the main content of the resource.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

option (role)

A selectable item in a select list.

Options SHOULD be associated with one of the non-abstract child roles of select, such as combobox, listbox, menu, radiogroup, or tree. Options not contained in, or owned by, one of these roles might not be correctly mapped to an accessibility API.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:input
Child Roles:
Base Concept:HTML option
Parent Element:select
Supported States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

presentation (role)

An element whose role is presentational, and does not need to be mapped to the accessibility API.

The intended use is when an element is used to change the look of the page but does not have all the functional, interactive, or structural relevance implied by the element type.

Example use cases:

  • A layout table;
  • An element whose content is presentational (like a spacer image or decorative graphic);
  • A block-level element used to force line breaks before and after its contents; or
  • An element used as an additional markup "hook" for CSS.

The user agent MAY choose not to present all structural aspects of the element being repurposed. For example, for a table marked as presentation, the user agent would remove the table, td, th, tr, etc. elements from the accessibility API mapping, while preserving the individual text elements within them. Because the user agent knows to ignore the structural aspects implied in a table, no harm is done by using a table for layout.

User agents should ignore elements with the presentation role for the purpose of determining the containment of items with ARIA roles. For example, in the following code sample:

<ul role="group">
		<li role="presentation">
		<span>...</span>
		</li>
		</ul>

The span should be considered a child of the ul element with the group role.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:structure
Inherited States and Properties:

progressbar (role)

An element that displays the progress status for tasks that take a long time.

A progressbar indicates that the user's request has been received and the application is making progress toward completing the requested action. The author SHOULD supply values for aria-valuenow, aria-valuemin, and aria-valuemax, unless the value is indeterminate in which the property should be omitted. These values should be updated when the visual progress indicator is updated. If the progressbar is describing the loading progress of a particular region of a page, the author SHOULD use aria-describedby to point to the status, and set the aria-busy state to "true" on the region until it is finished loading.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:widget
Supported States and Properties: aria-valuetext
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True
Children Presentational:True

radio (role)

An option in single-select list.

Elements with role radio SHOULD be be explicitly grouped in order to indicate which ones affect the same value. This should be done by enclosing them in an element with role radiogroup. If it is not possible to make the radio buttons DOM children of the radiogroup, use the aria-owns property on the radiogroup element to indicate the relationship to its children.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

radiogroup (role)

A group of radio buttons.

A radiogroup is a type of select list that can only have a single entry checked at any one time. Authors should enforce that only one radio button in a radiogroup can be checked at the same time. When one item in the group is checked, the previously checked item becomes unchecked (its aria-checked attribute becomes false).

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:select
list
Required Child Elements:radio
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

range (abstract role)

An input representing a range of values that can be set by the user.

Note: range is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:input
Child Roles:
Supported States and Properties: aria-valuetext
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

region (role)

A large perceivable section of a Web page or document, that the author feels should be included in a summary of page features.

This role defines a group of elements that together form a large perceivable section that the author feels should be included in a summary of page features. A region SHOULD have a heading, provided via an instance of the heading role or by using the standard accessible name calculation. A region does not necessarily follow the logical structure of the content, but follows the perceivable structure of the page.

When defining regions of a Web page, authors should consider using standard document landmark roles . If the definition of these regions are inadequate, authors should use the region role and provide the appropriate accessible name.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From: author

roletype (abstract role)

The base role from which all other roles in this taxonomy inherit.

Properties of this role describe the structural and functional purpose of objects that are assigned this role (known in RDF terms as "instances"). A role is a concept that can be used to understand and operate instances.

Note: roletype is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Child Roles:
Supported States and Properties:Placeholder for global properties
Inherited States and Properties:

row (role)

A row of grid cells.

Rows contain gridcells, and thus serve to organize the grid.

In a treegrid, rows MAY be expandable, using the aria-expanded state to indicate the present status. This is not the case for an ordinary grid, in which the aria-expanded state is not present.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:group
Base Concept:HTML tr
Parent Element:
Required Child Elements:gridcell
Supported States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author

rowheader (role)

A grid cell containing header information for a row.

Rowheader can be used as a row header in a table or grid. The rowheader establishes a relationship between it and all cells in the corresponding row. It is a structural equivalent to setting row="scope" on an HTML th element.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Base Concept:HTML th with scope=row
Parent Element:row
Supported States and Properties:aria-sort
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True


section (abstract role)

A renderable structural containment unit in a document or application.

Note: section is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:structure
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author

sectionhead (abstract role)

A structure that labels or summarizes the topic of its related section.

Note: sectionhead is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:structure
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author

select (abstract role)

A form widget that allows the user to make selections from a set of choices.

Elements with role option, SHOULD be contained in elements using one of the non-abstract child roles of select. Selects may be empty, containing no rows or cells.

Note: select is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

separator (role)

A divider that separates and distinguishes sections of content or groups of menuitems.

This is a visual separator between sections of content. For example, separators are found between groups of menu items in a menu.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:structure
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Children Presentational:True

slider (role)

A user input where the user selects a value from within a given range.

A slider represents the current value and range of possible values via the size of the slider and position of the thumb. It is typically possible to add or subtract to the value by using directional keys such as arrow keys.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:range
Required States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True
Children Presentational:True

spinbutton (role)

A form of range that expects a user to select from amongst discrete choices.

A spinbutton typically allows the user to select from the given range through the use of an up and down button on the keyboard. Visibly, the current value is incremented or decremented until a maximum or minimum value is reached. This functionality SHOULD be accomplished programmatically through the use of up and down arrows on the keyboard.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Required States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

status (role)

A container whose content is advisory information for the user.

A status object must have content within it to provide the actual status information. This object SHOULD NOT receive focus.

Status is a form of live region. Its assumed default value for the aria-live property is "polite".

If another part of the page controls what appears in the status, the relationship should be made explicit with the aria-controls property.

Some cells of a Braille display MAY be reserved to render the status.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:

structure (abstract role)

A document structural element.

Roles for document structure support the accessibility of dynamic Web content by helping assistive technology to determine active content vs. static document content. Structural roles by themselves do not all map to accessibility APIs, but are used to create widget roles or assist content adaptation.

The taxonomy of structural roles is likely to evolve as new use cases are added to the scope of this specification.

Note: structure is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:roletype
Child Roles:
Supported States and Properties:aria-expanded
Inherited States and Properties:

tab (role)

A header for a tabpanel.

The tab role is used as a grouping label, providing a link for selecting the tab content to be rendered to the user. If a tabpanel or item in a tabpanel has focus, the associated tab is the currently active tab in the tablist, as defined by aria-activedescendant.

The tabpanel associated with the currently active tab SHOULD be perceivable to the user:

  • For a single-selectable tablist, other tabpanel elements SHOULD be hidden from the user until the user selects the tab associated with that tabpanel.
  • For a multi-selectable tablist, each tabpanel element that is visible SHOULD have its aria-expanded attribute set to true, and the remaining tabpanel elements SHOULD be hidden and their aria-expanded attributes SHOULD be set to false.

In either case, authors SHOULD ensure the currently active tab has its aria-selected attribute set to true while other tab elements SHOULD have aria-selected set to false, and the currently selected tab SHOULD provide visual indication that it is selected. In the absence of an aria-selected attribute on the current tab, user agents SHOULD indicate the currently active tab to assistive technologies through the platform accessibility API.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Parent Element:tablist
Supported States and Properties:aria-selected
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author

tabpanel (role)

A container for the resources associated with a tab.

Authors SHOULD associate a tabpanel element with its tab, either by using the aria-controls attribute on the tab to reference the tabpanel, or by using the aria-labelledby attribute on the tabpanel to reference the tab.

For detailed information about how to use tab panels, see the TabPanel Widget in WAI-ARIA Best Practices ([ARIA-PRACTICES], Section 9.2).

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:region
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

tablist (role)

A list of tab elements, which are references to tabpanel elements.

To be keyboard accessible, instances of this role SHOULD manage focus of descendants, as described in Managing Focus.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Required Child Elements:tab
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • author

textbox (role)

Inputs that allow free-form text as their value.

If the aria-multiline property is true, the widget accepts line breaks within the input, as in a HTML textarea. Otherwise this is a simple text box.

Intended use is in languages that do not have a text input element (such as SVG), or cases in which an element with different semantics is repurposed as an text field.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:input
Supported States and Properties:
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

timer (role)

A numerical counter which indicates an amount of elapsed time from a start point, or the time remaining until an end point.

The text contents of the timer object indicate the current time measurement, and are updated as that amount changes. However, the timer value is not necessarily machine parsable. The text contents SHOULD be updated at fixed intervals, except when the timer is paused or reaches an end-point.

A timer is a form of live region. The default value of aria-live for timer is "off".

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:status
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

toolbar (role)

A collection of commonly used function buttons represented in compact visual form.

The toolbar is often a subset of functions found in a menubar, designed to reduced user effort in using these functions.

To be keyboard accessible, instances of this role SHOULD manage focus of descendants, as described in Managing Focus.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:group
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author

tooltip (role)

A contextual popup that displays a description for an element in a mouse hover or keyboard focused state. Supplement to the normal tooltip processing of the user agent.

Objects with this role should be referenced through the use of aria-describedby by the time the tooltip is displayed.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:section
Inherited States and Properties:
Accessible Name Required:True

tree (role)

A type of list that may contain sub-level nested groups that can be collapsed and expanded.

To be keyboard accessible, instances of this role SHOULD manage focus of descendants, as described in Managing Focus.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:select
Child Roles:
Required Child Elements:treeitem
Supported States and Properties:aria-multiselectable
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

treegrid (role)

A grid whose rows can be expanded and collapsed in the same manner as for a tree.

To be keyboard accessible, instances of this role SHOULD manage focus of descendants, as described in Managing Focus.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Required Child Elements:row
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:author
Accessible Name Required:True

treeitem (role)

An option item of a tree. This is an element within a tree that may be expanded or collapsed if it contains a sub-level group of treeitems.

A collection of treeitems to be expanded and collapsed are enclosed in an element with the group role.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Parent Roles:
Parent Element:tree
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From:
  • contents
  • author
Accessible Name Required:True

widget (abstract role)

An interactive component of a graphical user interface (GUI).

Widgets are discrete user interface elements with which the user can interact. Widget roles all map to standard features in accessibility APIs.

Note: widget is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:roletype
Child Roles:
Inherited States and Properties:

window (abstract role)

A browser or application window.

Elements with this role have a window-like behavior in a graphical user interface (GUI) context, regardless of whether they are implemented as a native window in the operating system, or merely as a section of the document styled to look like a window.

Note: window is an abstract role used for the ontology. Authors SHOULD NOT use this role in content.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Is Abstract:True
Parent Roles:roletype
Child Roles:
Supported States and Properties:aria-expanded
Inherited States and Properties:
Name From: author

5. Supported States and Properties

This section is normative.

5.1. Clarification of States versus Properties

This section is informative.

The terms "states" and "properties" refer to similar features. Both provide specific information about an object, and both form part of the definition of the nature of roles. In this document, states and properties are both treated as aria-prefixed markup attributes. However, they are maintained conceptually distinct to clarify subtle differences in their meaning. One major difference is that the values of properties (such as aria-labelledby) are less likely to change throughout the application life-cycle than the values of states (such as aria-checked) which may change frequently due to user interaction. See the definitions of state and property for more information.

5.2. Characteristics of States and Properties

States and properties have the following characteristics:

5.2.1. Related Concepts

Advisory information about features from this or other languages that correspond to this state or property. While the correspondence may not be exact, it is useful to help understand the intent of the state or property.

5.2.2. Used in Roles

Advisory information about roles that use this state or property. This information is provided to help understand the appropriate usage of the state or property. Use of a given state or property is not defined when used on roles other than those listed.

5.2.3. Inherits into Roles

Advisory information about roles that inherit the state or property from an ancestor role.

5.2.4. Value

Value restrictions for the state or property. These restrictions are expressed in terms of XML Schema Datatypes [XSD]. The following XSD Datatypes are used in this specification.

  • boolean: a true/false value, expressed in attribute values as "true" or "false".
  • decimal: a real number, represented as a decimal.
  • integer: a positive or negative integer, expressed as a decimal number.
  • string: an arbitrary string value.
  • IDREF: a reference to the ID of another element in the same document.
  • IDREFS: a whitespace-delimited list of references to the ID of one or more elements in the same document.
  • NMTOKEN: a value selected from a set of allowed values, which are defined by an enumeration constraint.
  • NMTOKENS: a whitespace-delimited list of one or more values selected from a set of allowed values, which are defined by an enumeration constraint.
  • anyURI: a Uniform Resource Identifier Reference (URI).
  • QName: an XML Qualified Name.

Values of type boolean, NMTOKEN, and NMTOKENS are further explained by listing the allowed values and their meanings below the table of characteristics. When a value is indicated as the default, the behavior prescribed by this value MUST be followed when the state or property is not provided. Some roles also define what behavior to use when certain states or properties, that do not have default values, are not provided.

Note: in the XHTML module, value restrictions are necessarily expressed in DTD notation, not XSD. DTD notation does not provide the precise value restrictions supported by XSD, and therefore the values in the DTD often have a wider scope of allowed values than what is actually allowed by this specification. Implementers MUST be sure to observe the value restrictions defined here and not rely simply on DTD validation.

5.3. Taxonomy of ARIA States and Properties

States and properties are categorized as follows:

  1. Widget Attributes
  2. Live Region Attributes
  3. Drag-and-Drop Attributes
  4. Relationship Attributes

5.3.1. Widget Attributes

This section contains attributes specific to common user interface elements found on GUI systems or in rich internet applications which receive user input and process user actions. These attributes are used to support the user input and user interface roles.

Widget attributes might be mapped by a user agent to platform accessibility API states, for access by an assistive technology, or they might be accessed directly from the DOM. Changes in states MUST result in a notification to an assistive technology either through DOM attribute change events or platform accessibility API events.

5.3.2. Live Region Attributes

This section contains attributes specific to live regions in rich internet applications. These attributes may be applied to any element. The purpose of these attributes is to indicate that content changes may occur without the element having focus, and to provide the assistive technology information on how to process those content updates. Some roles specify a default value for the aria-live property specific to that role. An example of a live region is a ticker section that lists updating stock quotes.

5.3.3. Drag-and-Drop Attributes

This section lists attributes which indicate information about drag-and-drop interface elements, such as draggable elements and their drop targets. This information should be rendered visually and provided to the assistive technology through an alternate modality.

For more information about using drag-and-drop, see Drag-and-Drop Support in the ARIA Best Practices ([ARIA-PRACTICES], Section 7).

5.3.4. Relationship Attributes

This section lists attributes that indicate relationships or associations between elements which cannot be readily determined from the document structure.

5.4. Definitions of States and Properties (all aria-* attributes)

Below is an alphabetical list of ARIA states and properties to be used by rich internet application authors. A detailed definition of each ARIA state and property follows this compact list.

aria-activedescendant
Identifies the current active child of a composite widget.
aria-atomic
Indicates if the assistive technology should present all or part of the changed region to the user when the region is updated.
aria-autocomplete
Indicates whether user input completion suggestions are provided.
aria-busy (state)
Indicates whether a live region is finished updating.
aria-checked (state)
Indicates the value of a binary or ternary (tri-state) widget such as a checkbox or radio button.
aria-controls
Defines the elements whose contents or presence are controlled by the current element.
aria-describedby
Points to an element which describes the object.
aria-disabled (state)
Indicates that the widget is present but disabled, so the value cannot be set.
aria-dropeffect (state)
Indicates the effect of a drag-and-drop operation when the dragged object is released on the drop target.
aria-expanded (state)
Indicates whether an expandable/collapsible group of elements is currently expanded or collapsed.
aria-flowto
Establishes the recommended reading order of content, overriding the general default to read in document order.
aria-grab (state)
Shows an element's mode during a drag-and-drop operation.
aria-haspopup
Indicates that the element has a popup context menu or sub-level menu.
aria-hidden (state)
Defines whether or not the object is visible (or otherwise perceivable) to the user.
aria-invalid (state)
Indicates the entered value does not conform to the format expected by the application.
aria-label
String value that labels the current element. A label should provide the user with the essence of what the object does. The most common accessibility API mapping for label is the accessible name property.
aria-labelledby
Points to the element which labels the current element.
aria-level
The hierarchical level of an element within a structure.
aria-live
Indicates that an element will be updated, and describes the types of updates the user agent, assistive technology, and user can expect from the live region.
aria-multiline
Indicates whether a text box accepts only a single line, or if it can accept multiline input.
aria-multiselectable
Indicates that the user may select more than one item from the current selectable descendants.
aria-owns
Defines a parent/child relationship among elements where the DOM hierarchy cannot be used to represent the relationship.
aria-posinset
Indicates an item's number or position in the current set of listitems or treeitems. Not required if inferred by the DOM.
aria-pressed (state)
Used for toggle buttons to indicate their current pressed state.
aria-readonly
Indicates that the element is not editable.
aria-relevant
Indicates the nature of changes within a live region.
aria-required
Indicates that user input is required on the element before a form may be submitted.
aria-selected (state)
Sets whether or not the element is selected.
aria-setsize
Indicates the number of items in the current set of listitems or treeitems. Not required if inferred by the DOM.
aria-sort
Indicates if items in a table or grid are sorted in ascending or descending order.
aria-valuemax
Maximum allowed value for a range widget.
aria-valuemin
Minimum allowed value for a range widget.
aria-valuenow
The current value for a range widget.
aria-valuetext
The human readable text equivalent of aria-valuenow for a range widget.

aria-activedescendant (property)

Identifies the current active child of a composite widget.

This is used when a composite widget is responsible for managing its current active child to reduce the overhead of having all children be focusable. Examples include: multi-level lists, trees, and grids.

Authors SHOULD ensure that the element targeted by the activedescendant property is either a descendant of the container in the DOM, or is a logical descendant as indicated by the aria-owns property. The user agent is not expected to check that the active descendant is an actual descendant of the container. Authors SHOULD ensure that the currently active descendant remains visible and in view. Authors SHOULD capture changes to the activedescendant property, which can occur if the assistive technology or user agent sets focus directly.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:IDREF

aria-atomic (property)

Indicates if the assistive technology should present all or part of the changed region to the user when the region is updated.

Both accessibility APIs and the Document Object Model [DOM] provide events to allow the assistive technology to determine changed areas of the document.

When a node changes, the assistive technology SHOULD look at the changed element and then traverse the ancestors to find the first element with atomic set, and apply the appropriate behavior for the cases below.

  1. If none of the ancestors have explicitly set atomic, the default is that atomic is false, and the assistive technology only needs to present the changed node to the user.
  2. If atomic is explicitly set to false, then the assistive technology can stop searching up the ancestor chain, and should present only the changed node to the user.
  3. If atomic is explicitly set to true, then the assistive technology should present the entire contents of the element.

When atomic is true, the assistive technology MAY choose to combine several changes and present the entire changed region at once.

If the region contains only a single data field and a label, then aria-label or aria-labelledby can be used instead of atomic, to ensure the entire region is spoken during a change.

Todo: Previous para is unclear. Clarify the example or remove. Write better example to clarify atomic live regions.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The assistive technology should present the entire region as a whole.
false:A change within the region may be processed by the assistive technology on its own.

aria-autocomplete (property)

Indicates whether user input completion suggestions are provided.

For a textbox with the aria-autocomplete attribute set to either inline or both, the completion text should be selected and come after the cursor, so the user can type over it. The aria-haspopup property can be used in conjunction with this to indicate that a popup containing choices appears, notwithstanding the fact that it is a simple text box.

For an element which already has a drop-down (i.e., a combobox), it is assumed that the dropdown behavior is still present. This means that if autocomplete is true, aria-haspopup should also be true on a combobox.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:textbox
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
inline:The system provides text after the caret as a suggestion for how to complete the field.
list:A list of choices appears from which the user can choose, but the edit box retains focus.
both:A list of choices appears and the currently selcted suggestion also appears inline.
none:Only values from the value list can be selected.

aria-busy (state)

Indicates whether a live region is finished updating.

The default is that aria-busy is false. If authors know that multiple parts of the same live region need to be loaded, they can set aria-busy to true when the first part is loaded, and then set aria-busy to false or remove the attribute when the last part is loaded. If there is an error updating the live region, set the aria-invalid attribute to true.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The live region is still being updated.
false:There are no more expected updates for that live region.

aria-checked (state)

Indicates the value of a binary or ternary (tri-state) widget such as a checkbox or radio button.

In addition to true and false, a value of mixed is supported on certain tri-state buttons such as menuitemcheckbox that represents the cumulative value for other menuitemcheckbox elements in a sub-level menu.

The mixed value is not supported on radio or menuitemradio or any element that inherits from these in the taxonomy, and user agents MUST treat a mixed value as equivalent to false on those roles.

Examples using the mixed value of tri-state buttons are covered in WAI-ARIA Best Practices [ARIA-PRACTICES]

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:option
Inherits into Roles:
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The current item is checked.
false: The role supports being checked but is not currently checked.
mixed:Indicates a mixed mode value for a tri-state checkbox or menuitemcheckbox.
undefined:The object does not support being checked.

aria-controls (property)

Defines the elements whose contents or presence are controlled by the current element.

For example:

  • A tree view table of contents may control the contents of a neighboring help contents document pane.
  • A group of checkboxes may control what commodity prices are tracked live in a table or graph.
  • A tab controls the display of its associated tabpanel.
Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:IDREFS

aria-describedby (property)

Points to an element which describes the object.

This is very similar to labeling an object with aria-labelledby. A label should provide the user with the essence of the what the object does, whereas a description is intended to provide detail that some users might need.

The element or elements referenced by the aria-describedby must entirely comprise the description. Include ID references to multiple elements if necessary, or enclose a set of elements (e.g., paragraphs) with the element referenced by the ID.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:IDREFS

aria-disabled (state)

Indicates that the widget is present but disabled, so the value cannot be set.

For example, irrelevant options in a radio group may be disabled. Disabled elements might not receive focus from the tab order. For some disabled elements, applications might choose not to support navigation to descendants. There SHOULD be a change of appearance (grayed out, etc.) to indicate that the item has been disabled.

The state of being disabled applies to the current element and all focusable descendant elements of the element on which the aria-disabled attribute is applied.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The widget and all focusable descendants are disabled and its value cannot be changed by the user.
false:The widget is enabled.

aria-dropeffect (state)

Indicates the effect of a drag-and-drop operation when the dragged object is released on the drop target.

More than one drop effect may be supported for a given element. Therefore, the value of this attribute is a space-delimited set of tokens indicating the possible effects, or none if there is no supported operation. In addition to setting the aria-dropeffect attribute, authors SHOULD show a visual indication of potential drop targets.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:NMTOKENS
Values:
ValueDescription
copy:A duplicate of the source object will be dropped into the target.
move:The source object will be removed from its original location and dropped into the target.
reference:A reference or short cut to the dragged object will be created in the target object.
execute:A function supported by the drop target is executed, using the drag source as an input.
popup:There is a popup menu or dialog that allows the user to choose one of the drag operations (copy, move, reference) and any other drag functionality, such as cancel.
none:No operation can be performed; effectively cancels the drag operation if an attempt is made to drop on this object.

aria-expanded (state)

Indicates whether an expandable/collapsible group of elements is currently expanded or collapsed.

For example, this indicates whether a portion of a tree is expanded or collapsed.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The group is expanded.
false:The group is collapsed.
undefined:The group is neither expandable nor collapsible; all its child elements are shown or there are no child elements.

aria-flowto (property)

Establishes the recommended reading order of content, overriding the general default to read in document order.

When flowto has a single IDREF, it instructs assistive technology to skip normal document reading order and go to the targeted object. Flowto in subsequent elements would follow a process similar to next focus in XHTML2 ([XHTML], Section 13). However, when flowto is provided with multiple IDs, then they should be processed as path choices by the AT, such as in a model based authoring tool. This means that the user SHOULD be given the option of navigating to any of the elements targeted. The name of the path can be determined by the name of the target element of the flowto. Accessibility APIs can provide named path relationships.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:IDREFS

aria-grab (state)

Shows an element's mode during a drag-and-drop operation.

When it is set to true it has been selected for dragging, supported indicates that the element can be grabbed for a drag-and-drop operation, but is not currently grabbed, false indicates the element cannot be grabbed (default).

When grab is set to true, all potential drop targets should have their aria-dropeffect property set appropriately. When an object is not grabbed (the value is set to supported, false, or the attribute is removed), the aria-dropeffect attributes of the associated drop targets SHOULD revert to none.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
true:Indicates that the element has been "grabbed" for dragging.
supported:Indicates that the element supports being dragged.
false:Indicates that the element does not support being dragged.

aria-haspopup (property)

Indicates that the element has a popup context menu or sub-level menu.

This means that activation renders conditional content. Note that ordinary tooltips are not considered popups in this context. The drop-down options in a combobox are also not popups in this sense.

Editorial Note: Why not? If not, we should explain why. Suggest removing last sentence and adding implied aria-haspopup="true" to combobox.

A popup is generally presented visually as a group of items that appears to be on top of the main page content. If possible, the entire popup should be visible when it opens (not partially offscreen).

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:Indicates the object has a popup, either as a descendant or pointed to by aria-owns.
false:The object has no popup.

aria-hidden (state)

Defines whether or not the object is visible (or otherwise perceivable) to the user.

If a menu is only visible after some user action, the hidden property should be set to "true" until the menu is presented, at which time the hidden property would be removed, indicating that the menu is visible.

It is recommended that authors key visibility of objects off this attribute, rather than change visibility and separately have to remember to update this property. CSS 2 provides a way to select on attribute values ([CSS], Section 5.8.1). The following CSS declaration makes content visible unless the hidden property is true; scripts need only update the value of this attribute to change visibility:

[aria-hidden="true"] { visibility: hidden; }

Note: At the time of this writing, this CSS example, while technically correct, will not redraw styles properly in some browsers if the attribute's value is changed dynamically. It may be necessary to toggle a classname, or otherwise to force the browser to redraw the styles properly.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:Indicates that this section of the document and its children are hidden from the rendered view.
false:Indicates that this section of the document is rendered.

aria-invalid (state)

Indicates the entered value does not conform to the format expected by the application.

If the value is computed to be invalid or out-of-range, the application SHOULD set this attribute to true. User agents SHOULD inform the user of the error. Applications SHOULD provide suggestions for correction where they are known. User agents may refuse to submit the form as long as there is an element for which aria-invalid is true.

When the user attempts submit data involving a field for which aria-required is true, the application may use the aria-invalid attribute to signal there is an error. However, if the user has not attempted to submit the form, the aria-invalid attribute should not be set on required widgets simply because the user has not yet entered data.

For future expansion, the aria-invalid attribute is an enumerated type. Any value not recognized in the list of allowed values MUST be treated as if the value true had been provided. If the attribute is not present, or its value is false, or its value is an empty string, the default value of false applies.

The aria-invalid attribute applies only to the element on which it is applied, and does not inherit to descendant elements.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
grammar:A grammatical error was detected.
false:There are no detected errors in the value.
spelling:A spelling error was detected.
true:The value entered by the user has failed validation.

aria-label (property)

String value that labels the current element. A label should provide the user with the essence of what the object does. The most common accessibility API mapping for label is the accessible name property.

This is similar in concept to the aria-labelledby property, which references a second element that labels the first.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:string

aria-labelledby (property)

Points to the element which labels the current element.

This is very similar to describing an object with aria-describedby. A label should provide the user with the essence of the what the object does, whereas a description is intended to provide additional information that some users might need.

Note: the expected spelling of this property in U.S. English is "labeledby." However, the accessibility API features to which this property is mapped have established the "labelledby" spelling. This property is spelled that way to match the convention and minimize the difficulty for developers.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:IDREFS

aria-level (property)

The hierarchical level of an element within a structure.

This can be applied inside trees to tree items, to headings inside a document, to nested grids, and to other structural items that may appear inside a container or participate in an ownership hierarchy. The value for aria-level is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

Levels should increase with depth. If the DOM ancestry does not accurately represent the level, the aria-level attribute should be maintained by the author.

This attribute is applied to leaf nodes (elements that would receive focus), not to the parent grouping element, even when all siblings are at the same level. This means that multiple elements in a set may have the same value for this attribute. Although it would be less repetitive to provide a single value on the container, it is not always possible for authors to do so. Restricting this to leaf nodes ensures that there is a single way for assistive technology to use the attribute.

If the DOM ancestry accurately represents the level, the user agent can calculate the level of an item from the document structure. This attribute can be used to provide an explicit indication of the level when that is not possible to calculate from the document structure or the aria-owns attribute. User agent support for automatic calculation of level may vary; authors should test with user agents and assistive technologies to determine whether this attribute is needed. If the author intends for the user agent to calculate the level, they SHOULD omit this attribute.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:integer

aria-live (property)

Indicates that an element will be updated, and describes the types of updates the user agent, assistive technology, and user can expect from the live region.

The values of this attribute are expressed in terms of politeness levels. Regions specified as polite will notify users of updates but generally do not interrupt the current task, and updates take low priority. Use the assertive value when the update needs to be communicated to the user more urgently, for example, warning or error messages in a form that does immediate validation for each form field.

Politeness levels are essentially an ordering mechanism for updates and serve as a strong suggestion to the user agent or assistive technology. The value may be overridden by the user agent, assistive technology, or user. For example, if the AT can determine that a change occurred in response to a key press or a mouse click then the AT may present that change immediately even if the value of the live property states otherwise.

Since different users have different needs, it is up to the user to tweak his or her AT's response to a live region with a certain politeness level from the commonly defined baseline. AT's may choose to implement increasing and decreasing levels of granularity so that the user can exercise control over queues and interruptions.

When the property is not set on an object that needs to send updates, the politeness level is inherited from the value of the nearest ancestor that sets the aria-live attribute.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
off:Updates to the region should not be presented to the user.
polite:(Background change) This SHOULD be the default behavior for most live regions. Updates should be announced at the next graceful opportunity, such as at the end of speaking the current sentence or when the user pauses their input typing.
assertive:This information has the highest priority and user agents SHOULD notify the user immediately. This may disorientate users causing them not to continue in their current task and as such should be used sparingly.

aria-multiline (property)

Indicates whether a text box accepts only a single line, or if it can accept multiline input.

There is very little difference in ARIA between single-line and multi-line text boxes, as both allow arbitrary text input. The main reason to indicate this is to warn of different behaviors of the enter key. In a multi-line text box, the enter key adds a new line; in a single-line text box, it does not and may activate a function outside the text box such as submitting the form.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:textbox
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:This is a multi-line text box.
false:This is a single-line text box.

aria-multiselectable (property)

Indicates that the user may select more than one item from the current selectable descendants.

Lists, trees, and grids may allow users to select more than one item at a time.

Descendants that are selected SHOULD have the aria-selected attribute set to true. Descendants that are selectable but not selected SHOULD have the aria-selected attribute set to false. Descendants that are not selectable SHOULD NOT use the aria-selected attribute.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:More than one item in the widget may be selected at a time.
false:Only one item can be selected.

aria-owns (property)

Defines a parent/child relationship among elements where the DOM hierarchy cannot be used to represent the relationship.

The relationship may represent a visual and functional association between elements that is not defined by any DOM parent/child hierarchy. The value of the aria-owns attribute is a space-separated list of IDREFS that reference one or more elements in the document by ID. The reason for adding aria-owns is to expose parent/child relationships to an assistive technology that are otherwise difficult or impossible to infer from the DOM.

Authors SHOULD NOT use aria-owns as a replacement for the DOM hierarchy. That is, if the relationship is captured by the DOM, then do not use aria-owns.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:IDREFS

aria-posinset (property)

Indicates an item's number or position in the current set of listitems or treeitems. Not required if inferred by the DOM.

For example, if this element is the third item in a group then posinset is equal to 3. The value for aria-posinset is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and less than or equal to the size of the set.

If all items in a set are present in the document structure, it is not necessary to set this attribute, as the user agent can automatically calculate the set size and position for each item. However, if only a portion of the set is present in the document structure at a given moment, this property is needed to provide an explicit indication.

Posinset SHOULD be used together with aria-setsize.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:integer

aria-pressed (state)

Used for toggle buttons to indicate their current pressed state.

Toggle buttons require a full press-and-release cycle to change their value. Activating it once changes the value to true, and activating it another time changes the value back to false. A value of mixed means that the values of more than one item controlled by the button do not all share the same value. Examples of mixed buttons are described in WAI-ARIA Best Practices [ARIA-PRACTICES]. If the attribute is not present, the button is not a toggle button.

The aria-pressed attribute is similar but not identical to the aria-checked attribute. Operating systems support pressed on buttons and checked on checkboxes.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:button
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The toggle button is pressed.
false:The toggle button is not pressed.
mixed:Indicates a mixed mode value for a tri-state toggle button.
undefined:The button is not a toggle button.

aria-readonly (property)

Indicates that the element is not editable.

This means the user can read but not set the value of the widget. Readonly elements are relevant to the user, and applications SHOULD NOT restrict navigation to focusable descendants. Other actions such as copying the value of the element are also supported. This is in contrast to disabled elements, to which applications might not allow user navigation to descendants.

Examples include:

  • A form element which represents a constant.
  • Row or column headers in a spreadsheet grid.
  • The result of a calculation such as a shopping cart total.
Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The user cannot change the value of the element.
false:The user can set the value of the element.

aria-relevant (property)

Indicates the nature of changes within a live region.

The attribute is represented as a space delimited list of the following values: additions, removals, text; or a single catch-all value all.

This is used to describe semantically meaningful changes, as opposed to merely presentational ones. For example, nodes that are removed from the top of a log are merely removed for purposes of creating room for other entries, and the removal of them does not have meaning. However, in the case of a buddy list, removal of a buddy name indicates that they are no longer online, and this is a meaningful event. In that case relevant should be set to all. When the aria-relevant attribute is not provided, the default is to assume that text and node additions are relevant, and that node removals are irrelevant.

aria-relevant is an optional attribute of live regions. This is a suggestion to the assistive technology, but the assistive technology is not required to present changes of all the relevant types.

Both accessibility APIs and the Document Object Model [DOM] provide events to allow the assistive technology to determine changed areas of the document.

When this value is not set, the value inherits from an object's nearest ancestor. It is not additive, meaning the set of values provided and omitted on an object completely override any inheritance of values.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:NMTOKENS
Values:
ValueDescription
additions:Nodes are added to the DOM within the region.
removals:Nodes are removed from the DOM.
text:Text is added or removed from the DOM.
all:Equivalent to the value "additions removals text".
additions text:Nodes are added or text is added to or removed from the DOM.

aria-required (property)

Indicates that user input is required on the element before a form may be submitted.

For example, if a user must fill in an address field, then aria-required is set to true.

Note: the fact that the element is required is often presented visually (such as a sign or symbol after the widget). Using the aria-required attribute makes it easier for user agents to pass on this information to the user.

The aria-required attribute applies only to the element on which it is applied, and does not inherit to descendant elements.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:All elements of the base markup
Value:boolean
Values:
ValueDescription
true:Users must provide input on an element before a form is submitted.
false:User input is not necessary to submit the form.

aria-selected (state)

Sets whether or not the element is selected.

This attribute is used single-selection and multiselectable widgets:

  1. Single selection containers where the currently focused item is not selected. The selection normally follows the focus, and is managed by the user agent. The author should only use aria-selected when the focused item is not in fact selected. The only useful value is false because otherwise the currently focused item is considered to be selected.
  2. Multiselectable containers. Any selectable descendant of a container in which the aria-multiselectable property is true must actively specify a value of either false or true for the aria-selected attribute.
Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
true:The selectable element is selected.
false:The selectable element is not selected.
undefined:The element is not selectable.

aria-setsize (property)

Indicates the number of items in the current set of listitems or treeitems. Not required if inferred by the DOM.

For example, if this element is in a group of six items at the same level then aria-setsize is equal to 6. The value for aria-setsize is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

This property is marked on the members of a set, not the container element that collects the members of the set. To orient a user by saying an element is "item X out of Y," the assistive technology would use X equal to the aria-posinset attribute and Y equal to the aria-setsize attribute.

If all items in a set are present in the document structure, it is not necessary to set this property, as the user agent can automatically calculate the set size and position for each item. However, if only a portion of the set is present in the document structure at a given moment (in order to reduce document size), this property is needed to provide an explicit indication.

Setsize SHOULD be used together with aria-posinset.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:listitem
Inherits into Roles:
Value:integer

aria-sort (property)

Indicates if items in a table or grid are sorted in ascending or descending order.

This property should only be applied to table or grid headers. If the property is not provided, there is no defined sort order.

Editorial Note: Suggest adding the following. "Authors SHOULD only apply @aria-sort to one header per table or grid."

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Value:NMTOKEN
Values:
ValueDescription
ascending:Items are sorted in ascending order by this column.
descending:Items are sorted in descending order by this column.
none:There is no defined sort applied to the column.
other:A sort algorithm other than ascending or descending has been applied.

aria-valuemax (property)

Maximum allowed value for a range widget.

A range widget may start with a given value, which can be increased until a maximum value, defined by this property, is reached.

Declaring the aria-valuemax will allow for alternate device to calibrate an arrow up effect, validate, or simply let the user know the size of the range. If the aria-valuenow has a known maximum and minimum, the author SHOULD provide properties for aria-valuemax and aria-valuemin.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:decimal

aria-valuemin (property)

Minimum allowed value for a range widget.

A range widget may start with a given value, which can be decreased until a minimum value, defined by this property, is reached.

Declaring the aria-valuemin allows for alternate device to calibrate an arrow up effect, validate, or simply let the user know the size of the range. If the aria-valuenow has a known maximum and minimum, the author SHOULD provide properties for aria-valuemax and aria-valuemin.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:decimal

aria-valuenow (property)

The current value for a range widget.

Used, for example, on a range widget such as a slider or progress bar.

If the current value is not known (for example, an indeterminate progress bar), the author SHOULD NOT set the aria-valuenow attribute. If the aria-valuenow attribute is absent, no information is implied about the current value. If the aria-valuenow has a known maximum and minimum, the author SHOULD provide properties for aria-valuemax and aria-valuemin.

The value of aria-valuenow is a number. If the value is not a number, provide an index value for this field (i.e., a numeric value that represents the position of the present value within the set of possible values), plus a proper value with the aria-valuetext property.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:decimal

aria-valuetext (property)

The human readable text equivalent of aria-valuenow for a range widget.

Used, for example, on a range widget such as a slider or progress bar.

If the aria-valuetext attribute is set, authors SHOULD also set the aria-valuenow attribute, unless that value is unknown (for example, on an indeterminate progressbar).

The aria-valuetext should only be set by authors when the rendered slider value cannot be completely be represented in the form of a number. For example, a slider may have rendered values of small, medium, and large. In this instance the values of aria-valuenow range from 1 through 3, which indicate the position of each value in the value space, but the aria-valuetext would be one of the strings: small, medium, or large. If the aria-valuetext attribute is absent, the assistive technology will rely solely on the aria-valuenow attribute for the current value.

Characteristics:
CharacteristicValue
Used in Roles:
Inherits into Roles:
Value:string

6. Implementation in Host Languages

This section is normative.

The roles, states, and properties defined in this specification do not form a whole Web language or format. They are intended to be used in the context of a host language. This section discusses what host languages should do to implement WAI-ARIA, to ensure that the markup specified here will integrate smoothly and effectively with the host language markup.

Although markup languages look alike superficially, they do not share language definition infrastructure. To accommodate differences in language-building approaches, the requirements are both general and modularization-specific. While allowing for differences in how the specifications are written, we believe we have maintained consistency in how the WAI-ARIA information looks to authors and how it is manipulated in the DOM by scripts.

ARIA roles, states, and properties are implemented as attributes of elements. Roles are applied by placing their names among the tokens appearing in the value of a host-language-provided role attribute. States and properties each get their own attribute, with values as defined for each particular state or property in this specification. The name of the attribute is the aria-prefixed name of the state or property.

6.1. General requirements on implementing host languages

6.1.1. Role attribute

An implementing host language will provide an attribute with the following characteristics:

  • The attribute name MUST be role;
  • The attribute value MUST allow a space-separated sequence of whitespace-free substrings;
  • The appearance of the name literal of any concrete ARIA role (see section 7.3.2) as one of these substrings MUST NOT in and of itself make the attribute value illegal in the host-language syntax; and
  • If the name literal of a concrete ARIA role appears as one of the substrings in the space-separated list in the role attribute, the role MUST be processed in accordance with this specification.

6.1.2. State and property attributes

An implementing host language MUST allow attributes with the following characteristics:

  • The attribute name is the name of any state or property identified in the Supported States and Properties section, such as aria-busy, aria-selected, aria-activedescendant, aria-valuetext;
  • The syntax MUST NOT prevent the attribute from appearing anywhere that it is applicable, as specified in this specification;
  • When these attributes appear in a document instance, the attributes MUST be processed as defined in this specification.

Following the Namespaces Recommendation [XML-NAMES], the namespace name for these attributes has no value. The names of these attributes do not have a prefix offset by a colon; in the terms of namespaces they are unprefixed attribute names. The ECMAScript binding of the DOM interface getAttributeNS for example, treats an empty string ("") as representing this condition, so that both getAttribute("aria-busy") and getAttributeNS("", "aria-busy") access the same aria-busy attribute in the DOM.

6.1.3. Focus Navigation

An implementing host language MUST provide support for:

  • The author to make arbitrary elements focusable; and
  • The user to have device-independent capability and, in particular, keyboard capability to navigate the focus to all focusable elements.

Editorial note: do we have to move the user capability to navigate the focus to a user agent requirement? What is the role of the host language in this? Aaron suggested that we say "keyboard navigation to the necessary elements is the responsibility of the host language" and therefore specification of TABINDEX is not part of WAI-ARIA.

6.1.4. Resolving Conflicts with Host Languages

If the host language incorporates ARIA support and there is a conflict between a host language feature and an ARIA feature, assistive technologies should assign preference to the ARIA feature.

6.2. Implementation using the Modularization Recommendation

Host languages can be constructed using the methods of the W3C Recommendation Modularization in XHTML [@@ref2m12n].

Host languages that are constructed following this recommendation MUST implement the abstract module comprising the attributes defined in section 5 above using a module implementation provided by this specification.

Appendix 8.1.2 below provides an implementation of this module as a DTD module.  

Appendix 8.1.3 below is a sample DTD integrating a language profile that implements WAI-ARIA by including the DTD module.  Note how the applicability of the tabindex attribute has been extended to satisfy 6.2.3 above.

Editorial Note: The URIs to be used to identify the module are still under discussion.

7. Quality Assurance

This section sets out normative conditions for conforming document instances and user agent processors, along with informative remarks about the role of other processors such as authoring tools and assistive technologies.

7.1. Authoring practices

This section is informative.

7.1.1. Authoring tools

Many of the requirements in the definitions of ARIA roles, states, and properties can be checked mechanically. Authoring tools can contribute to the successful use of ARIA markup by offering their users conformance-checking modes.

Until such time as a body of useful, common practice has been established and confirmed by widespread accessible use, authoring tools are advised to pattern their prompting and coaching of authors after the practices in the Best Practices Guide [ARIA-PRACTICES].

7.1.2. Testing practices and tools

The accessibility of interactive content cannot be confirmed by static checks alone. Developers of interactive content should test for device-independent access to the operations of the widgets and applications, and display and API visibility into all changes of the widgets and applications during user interaction.

7.2. User Agent Conformance

This section is normative.

7.2.1. Non-interference with the host language

WAI-ARIA processing by the user agent MUST NOT interfere with the normal operation of the built-in features of the host language.

Scripted changes in the DOM and style rules which change the presentation of the content based on selectors sensitive to ARIA markup MUST be considered as part of normal operation. On the other hand, the mapping to accessibility APIs MUST be considered, in applying this rule, to be above and beyond normal operation. The ARIA processing MAY alter the mapping of the host language features into an accessibility API, but the mapping to the API MUST not alter the DOM.

7.2.2. Applicable ARIA Role

7.2.2.1. Requirement is functional

As discussed above in section , an implementing host language will provide a role attribute with a value which will be a space-separated sequence of tokens. If the element does not have a role attribute, or if the role attribute contains no tokens matching the name of a concrete ARIA role, zero ARIA roles will be applied.

7.2.2.2. Overview

The applicable ARIA role is the concrete ARIA role whose name is matched by the first token in the sequence of tokens in the "role" attribute value which matches, on case-sensitive comparison, the name of any concrete ARIA role.

A concrete ARIA role is any of the role types described above except abstract roles (roles for which isAbstract is true) and the roles imported from the Role Module, that is those that are introduced in sections 4.4.6 and 4.4.7.

7.2.2.3. Step-by-step

The following steps will correctly identify the applicable ARIA role.

  1. The rules of the host language are used to detect that an element has an attribute with attribute name of "role" and to identify the attribute value string for that attribute.
  2. The attribute value string for that attribute is broken into a sequence of whitespace-free substrings by separating on whitespace.
  3. The substrings are compared in a case-sensitive comparison with all the names of concrete ARIA roles as defined above.
  4. The first such substring in textual order that matches the name of a concrete ARIA role is the name of the applicable ARIA role.
7.2.2.4. Explicit ARIA role rules, in accessibility API only

The applicable ARIA role, if there is one, MUST be the role value which is mapped to the value of a role property in any accessibility API which accepts only one role value. User agents MUST use an explicit applicable ARIA role as overriding any implicit role inferred from the host language markup in performing this mapping. Note that, in conformance with section 7.3.1 above, this overriding does not result in any changes in the DOM, only in the accessibility API representation of the document.

7.2.3. All ARIA in DOM

A conforming user agent which implements a Document Object Model per the W3C Recommendations MUST include the entire role attribute value in the DOM and all ARIA states and properties in the document instance in the corresponding DOM.

7.2.4. Accessibility API mapping

User agents SHOULD expose role, state, and property information provided by the author to accessibility APIs available in their operating system. Refer to Mapping States and Properties to Accessibility APIs ([ARIA-PRACTICES], Section 12.1) for guidance about how to expose this information. This requirement parallels User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Section 6.3: Programmatic Access to non-HTML/XML Content ([UAAG], Section 6.3), except that it applies even to HTML and XML content.

Note: Not all platforms provide interfaces that map to all the roles, states, and properties defined in this specification. User agents should expose those roles, states, and properties that are supported. The remaining roles, states, and properties are available to assistive technologies via the DOM, for those that provide explicit support for this specification.

7.3. Assistive Technologies

This section is informative.

Assistive technologies should use available role, state, and property information to present content to, and support interaction with, users in an appropriate manner. This requirement parallels User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Section 6.5: Programmatic operation of user agent user interface and Section 6.6: Programmatic notification of changes ([UAAG], Section 6.5 and 6.6) except that it applies to content, not just to the user agent.

8. Appendices

This section is informative.

8.1. Implementations

8.1.1. Roles Implementation

Editorial note: the following references are used by the RDF but are not otherwise referenced in the document, and therefore are uncited. Explanations of these resources will be integrated into the prose.

[SKOS]
SKOS is an area of work developing specifications and standards to support the use of knowledge organisation systems (KOS) such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, terminologies, glossaries and other types of controlled vocabulary within the framework of the Semantic Web.
[DAISY]
DAISY denotes the Digital Accessible Information System
[NIMAS]
NIMAS the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), is a voluntary standard to guide the production and electronic distribution of flexible digital instructional materials, such as textbooks, so that they can be more easily converted to Braille, text-to-speech, and other accessible formats.
[DTB]
The Digital Talking Book standard that defines the format and content of the electronic file set that comprises a digital talking book (DTB) and establishes a limited set of requirements for DTB playback devices.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE rdf:RDF [
  <!ENTITY xsd "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#">
  <!ENTITY dc "http://dublincore.org/2003/03/24/dces#">
  <!ENTITY owl "http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#">
  <!ENTITY rdfs "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
  <!ENTITY rdf "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
  <!ENTITY states "http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#">
]>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
         xmlns:role="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/vocab#"
         xmlns:states="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#"
         xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#"
         xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/#"
         xmlns:owl="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#"
         xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
         xml:base="http://www.w3.org/2005/01/wai-rdf/GUIRoleTaxonomy"><!--==Objects==--><owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="baseConcept">
      <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">This is similar to type but without
		  inheritance of limitations and properties. role:baseConcepts are designed as
		  a substitute for inheritance for external concepts. </rdfs:comment>
      <rdfs:subpropertyOf rdf:resource="rdfs:seeAlso"/>
   </owl:ObjectProperty>
   <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="supportedState">
      <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A state that can be supported for this a
		  Role</rdfs:comment>
      <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#roletype"/>
   </owl:ObjectProperty>
   <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="scope">
      <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Context where this role is
		  allowed</rdfs:comment>
      <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#roletype"/>
   </owl:ObjectProperty>
   <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="mustContain">
      <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A child that must be contained by this
		  role</rdfs:comment>
      <rdfs:subpropertyOf rdf:resource="#scope"/>
   </owl:ObjectProperty>
   <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="default">
      <rdfs:comment>Default value of a supported state in the context of
		  this role</rdfs:comment>
   </owl:ObjectProperty>
   <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="nameFrom">
      <rdfs:comment>How a role type name is extracted and referenced 
		  inside a document. Values are "author": name comes from values 
		  provided by the author in explict markup features; and "subtree": 
		  name comes from the text value of the element node.</rdfs:comment>
      <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#widget"/>
   </owl:ObjectProperty>
   <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:ID="childrenArePresentational">
      <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">The children are presenational. Assistive
				technologies may choose to hid the children from the user.</rdfs:comment>
      <rdf:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#boolean"/>
      <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#roletype"/>
   </owl:ObjectProperty>
   <!--==Definition of Roles==--><owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-common-elements-alert"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#alert"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#dialog"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-common-elements-alert"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/di-gloss/#def-delivery-unit"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#document"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#the-article"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#input"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#edef-BUTTON"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#link"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-button"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-pressed"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#input"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#edef-INPUT"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#option"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#gridcell"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#sectionhead"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#edef-TH"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#row"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-sort"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#select"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#edef-SELECT"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-selectMany"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#listbox"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#widget"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-activedescendant"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#window"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#list"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.daisy.org/z3986/2005/Z3986-2005.html#Guide"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#structure"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/di-gloss/#def-delivery-unit"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#composite"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#edef-TABLE"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#row"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-level"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-multiselectable"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#readonly"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#widget"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#edef-TD"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#row"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-level"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#readonly"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-selected"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#edef-FIELDSET"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-activedescendant"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#sectionhead"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-H1"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-H2"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-H3"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-H4"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-H5"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#edef-H6"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.loc.gov/nls/z3986/v100/dtbook110doc.htm#levelhd"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-level"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.loc.gov/nls/z3986/v100/dtbook110doc.htm#imggroup"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#widget"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-input"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#widget"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#edef-LINK"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/lists.html#edef-UL"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#group"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#listitem"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#list"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#select"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#edef-SELECT"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-selectMany"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#option"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-multiselectable"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/lists.html#edef-LI"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-common-elements-item"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#list"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-level"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-posinset"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-setsize"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#list"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#select"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.loc.gov/nls/z3986/v100/dtbook110doc.htm#sidebar"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-selectMany"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/javax/accessibility/AccessibleRole.html#MENU"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#menuitem"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#menuitemcheckbox"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#menuitemradio"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#menu"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#toolbar"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#input"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/javax/accessibility/AccessibleRole.html#MENU_ITEM"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#listitem"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#option"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#menu"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#checkbox"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#menuitem"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#menuitem"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#menu"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#menuitemcheckbox"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#radio"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#menuitem"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#menu"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#input"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#edef-OPTION"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#listitem"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-common-elements-item"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-checked"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-selected"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#structure"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#widget"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#status"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuemax"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuemin"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuenow"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuetext"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#checkbox"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#option"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#edef-INPUT"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#select"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#radio"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#input"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuemax"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuemin"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuenow"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-valuetext"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/frames.html#edef-FRAME"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/di-gloss/#def-perceivable-unit"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#section"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-role/#s_role_module_attributes"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#edef-LINK"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/type"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#group"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#edef-TR"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#grid"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#treegrid"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#gridcell"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-level"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-selected"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#gridcell"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#sectionhead"/>
      <role:baseConcept rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#edef-TH"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#row"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-sort"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#landmark"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#structure"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.loc.gov/nls/z3986/v100/dtbook110doc.htm#frontmatter"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.loc.gov/nls/z3986/v100/dtbook110doc.htm#level"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-smil/#par"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#structure"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#composite"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#group"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#input"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#structure"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/graphics.html#edef-HR"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#range"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#composite"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#range"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#composite"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#roletype"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-expanded"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#sectionhead"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#widget"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#tablist"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-selected"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#region"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#composite"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#directory"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.daisy.org/z3986/2005/Z3986-2005.html#Guide"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#tab"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#input"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/#ui-input"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#edef-TEXTAREA"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#autocomplete"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-multiline"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#readonly"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#status"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#group"/>
      <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="#menubar"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#section"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#select"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#treeitem"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-multiselectable"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#grid"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#tree"/>
      <role:mustContain rdf:resource="#row"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#listitem"/>
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#option"/>
      <role:scope rdf:resource="#tree"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#roletype"/>
   </owl:Class>
   <owl:Class rdf:ID="">
      <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="#roletype"/>
      <role:supportedState rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa#aria-expanded"/>
   </owl:Class>
</rdf:RDF>

8.1.2. ARIA Attributes Module

This module declares the ARIA attributes as a module that can be included in a modularlized DTD. A sample XHTML DTD using this module follows. Note the ARIA attributes are in no namespace, and the attribute name begins with "aria-" to reduce the likelihood of collision with existing attributes.

<!-- ...................................................................... -->
<!-- ARIA Attributes Module ............................................... -->
<!-- file: aria-attributes.mod

     This is ARIA Attributes - the Accessible Rick Internat Applications
     attributes module for XHTML.

     Copyright 2008 W3C (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved.

     This DTD module is identified by the PUBLIC and SYSTEM identifiers:

       PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES XHTML ARIA Attributes 1.0//EN"
       SYSTEM "http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa/aria-attributes.mod"

     Revisions:
     (none)
     ....................................................................... -->

<!-- states -->
<!ENTITY % ARIA.states.attrib "
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- ( true | false | mixed ) 'undefined'
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- NMTOKENS 'none'
    aria- ( true | false | undefined ) 'undefined'
    aria- ( true | supported | false ) 'false'
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- ( grammar | false | spelling | true ) 'false'
    aria- ( true | false | mixed | undefined ) 'undefined'
    aria- ( true | false | undefined ) 'undefined'
">

<!-- properties -->
<!ENTITY % ARIA.props.attrib "
    aria- IDREF #IMPLIED
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- ( inline | list | both | none ) 'none'
    aria- IDREFS #IMPLIED
    aria- IDREFS #IMPLIED
    aria- IDREFS #IMPLIED
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
    aria- IDREFS #IMPLIED
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
    aria- ( off | polite | assertive ) 'off'
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- IDREFS #IMPLIED
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- NMTOKENS 'additions text'
    aria- ( true | false ) 'false'
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
    aria- ( ascending | descending | none | other ) 'none'
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
    aria- CDATA #IMPLIED
">

<!ENTITY % ARIA.extra.attrib "" >

<!ENTITY % ARIA.attrib "
    %ARIA.states.attrib;
    %ARIA.props.attrib;
    %ARIA.extra.attrib;
">

<!-- End aria-attributes Module ................................................... -->

8.1.3. Sample XHTML plus ARIA DTD

This sample DTD extends XHTML 1.1 and adds the ARIA state and property attributes to all its elements. In order to provide broader keyboard support and conform with the Focus Navigation section above, it also adds the tabindex attribute to a wider set of elements.

<!-- ....................................................................... -->
<!-- XHTML+ARIA DTD  ....................................................... -->
<!-- file: xhtml-aria-1.dtd
-->

<!-- XHTML 1.1 + ARIA DTD

     This is an example markup language combining XHTML 1.1 and the ARIA
     modules.

     XHTML+ARIA
     Copyright 1998-2008 World Wide Web Consortium
        (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, European Research Consortium
         for Informatics and Mathematics, Keio University).
         All Rights Reserved.

     Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute the XHTML DTD and its 
     accompanying documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby 
     granted in perpetuity, provided that the above copyright notice and 
     this paragraph appear in all copies.  The copyright holders make no 
     representation about the suitability of the DTD for any purpose.

     It is provided "as is" without expressed or implied warranty.

-->
<!-- This is the driver file for a sample XHTML + ARIA DTD.

     Please use this public identifier to identify it:

         "-//W3C//DTD XHTML+ARIA EXAMPLE 1.0//EN"
-->
<!ENTITY % XHTML.version  "XHTML+ARIA 1.0" >

<!-- Use this URI to identify the default namespace:

         "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"

     See the Qualified Names module for information
     on the use of namespace prefixes in the DTD.

	 Note that XHTML namespace elements are not prefixed by default,
	 but the XHTML namespace prefix is defined as "xhtml" so that
	 other markup languages can extend this one and use the XHTML
	 prefixed global attributes if required.

-->
<!ENTITY % NS.prefixed "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % XHTML.prefix "xhtml" >

<!-- Be sure to include prefixed global attributes - we don't need
     them, but languages that extend XHTML 1.1 might.
-->
<!ENTITY % XHTML.global.attrs.prefixed "INCLUDE" >

<!-- Reserved for use with the XLink namespace:
-->
<!ENTITY % XLINK.xmlns "" >
<!ENTITY % XLINK.xmlns.attrib "" >

<!-- For example, if you are using XHTML 1.1 directly, use the public
     identifier in the DOCTYPE declaration, with the namespace declaration
     on the document element to identify the default namespace:

       <?xml version="1.0"?>
       <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML+ARIA 1.0//EN"
                             "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-aria-1.dtd">
       <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
             xml:lang="en">
       ...
       </html>

     Revisions:
     (none)
-->

<!-- reserved for future use with document profiles -->
<!ENTITY % XHTML.profile  "" >

<!-- ensure XHTML Notations are disabled -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-notations.module "IGNORE" >

<!-- Bidirectional Text features
     This feature-test entity is used to declare elements
     and attributes used for bidirectional text support.
-->
<!ENTITY % XHTML.bidi  "INCLUDE" >

<!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->

<!-- Pre-Framework Redeclaration placeholder  .................... -->
<!-- this serves as a location to insert markup declarations
     into the DTD prior to the framework declarations.
-->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-prefw-redecl.module "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % xhtml-prefw-redecl.mod "" >
<![%xhtml-prefw-redecl.module;[
%xhtml-prefw-redecl.mod;
<!-- end of xhtml-prefw-redecl.module -->]]>

<!-- we need the datatypes now -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-datatypes.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-datatypes.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-datatypes.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES XHTML Datatypes 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-datatypes-1.mod" >
%xhtml-datatypes.mod;]]>

<!-- bring in the ARIA attributes cause we need them in Common -->
<!ENTITY % ARIA-attributes.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%ARIA-attributes.module;[
<!ENTITY % ARIA-attributes.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES XHTML ARIA Attributes 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/2005/07/aaa/aria-attributes-1.mod" >
%ARIA-attributes.mod;]]>

<!-- bring in the role attribute cause it goes in Common too -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-role.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-role.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-role.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES XHTML Role Attribute 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-role-qname-1.mod" >
%xhtml-role.mod;]]>

<!ENTITY % xhtml-events.module "INCLUDE" >

<!-- populate common.extra -->
<!ENTITY % Common.extra.attrib
   "tabindex     %Number.datatype;        #IMPLIED
    %xhtml-role.attrs.qname;
    %ARIA.attrib;"
>

<!-- Inline Style Module  ........................................ -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-inlstyle.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-inlstyle.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-inlstyle.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Inline Style 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-inlstyle-1.mod" >
%xhtml-inlstyle.mod;]]>

<!-- declare Document Model module instantiated in framework
-->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-model.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES XHTML 1.1 Document Model 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml11-model-1.mod" >

<!-- Modular Framework Module (required) ......................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-framework.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-framework.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-framework.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ENTITIES XHTML Modular Framework 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-framework-1.mod" >
%xhtml-framework.mod;]]>

<!-- Post-Framework Redeclaration placeholder  ................... -->
<!-- this serves as a location to insert markup declarations
     into the DTD following the framework declarations.
-->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-postfw-redecl.module "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % xhtml-postfw-redecl.mod "">
<![%xhtml-postfw-redecl.module;[
%xhtml-postfw-redecl.mod;
<!-- end of xhtml-postfw-redecl.module -->]]>



<!-- Text Module (Required)  ..................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-text.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-text.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-text.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Text 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-text-1.mod" >
%xhtml-text.mod;]]>

<!-- Hypertext Module (required) ................................. -->
<!ENTITY % a.attlist  "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % xhtml-hypertext.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-hypertext.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-hypertext.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Hypertext 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-hypertext-1.mod" >
%xhtml-hypertext.mod;]]>
<!ATTLIST %a.qname;
      %Common.attrib;
      href         %URI.datatype;           #IMPLIED
      charset      %Charset.datatype;       #IMPLIED
      type         %ContentType.datatype;   #IMPLIED
      hreflang     %LanguageCode.datatype;  #IMPLIED
      rel          %LinkTypes.datatype;     #IMPLIED
      rev          %LinkTypes.datatype;     #IMPLIED
      accesskey    %Character.datatype;     #IMPLIED
>

<!-- Lists Module (required)  .................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-list.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-list.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-list.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Lists 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-list-1.mod" >
%xhtml-list.mod;]]>

<!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->

<!-- Edit Module  ................................................ -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-edit.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-edit.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-edit.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Editing Elements 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-edit-1.mod" >
%xhtml-edit.mod;]]>

<!-- BIDI Override Module  ....................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-bdo.module "%XHTML.bidi;" >
<![%xhtml-bdo.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-bdo.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML BIDI Override Element 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-bdo-1.mod" >
%xhtml-bdo.mod;]]>

<!-- Ruby Module  ................................................ -->
<!ENTITY % Ruby.common.attlists "INCLUDE" >
<!ENTITY % Ruby.common.attrib "%Common.attrib;" >
<!ENTITY % xhtml-ruby.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-ruby.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-ruby.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Ruby 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby/xhtml-ruby-1.mod" >
%xhtml-ruby.mod;]]>

<!-- Presentation Module  ........................................ -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-pres.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-pres.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-pres.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Presentation 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-pres-1.mod" >
%xhtml-pres.mod;]]>

<!-- Link Element Module  ........................................ -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-link.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-link.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-link.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Link Element 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-link-1.mod" >
%xhtml-link.mod;]]>

<!-- Document Metainformation Module  ............................ -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-meta.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-meta.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-meta.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Metainformation 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-meta-1.mod" >
%xhtml-meta.mod;]]>

<!-- Base Element Module  ........................................ -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-base.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-base.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-base.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Base Element 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-base-1.mod" >
%xhtml-base.mod;]]>

<!-- Scripting Module  ........................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-script.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-script.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-script.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Scripting 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-script-1.mod" >
%xhtml-script.mod;]]>

<!-- Style Sheets Module  ......................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-style.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-style.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-style.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Style Sheets 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-style-1.mod" >
%xhtml-style.mod;]]>

<!-- Image Module  ............................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-image.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-image.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-image.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Images 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-image-1.mod" >
%xhtml-image.mod;]]>

<!-- Client-side Image Map Module  ............................... -->
<!ENTITY % area.attlist "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % xhtml-csismap.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-csismap.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-csismap.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Client-side Image Maps 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-csismap-1.mod" >
%xhtml-csismap.mod;]]>
<!ATTLIST %area.qname;
      %Common.attrib;
      href         %URI.datatype;           #IMPLIED
      shape        %Shape.datatype;         'rect'
      coords       %Coords.datatype;        #IMPLIED
      nohref       ( nohref )               #IMPLIED
      alt          %Text.datatype;          #REQUIRED
      accesskey    %Character.datatype;     #IMPLIED
>

<!-- Server-side Image Map Module  ............................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-ssismap.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-ssismap.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-ssismap.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Server-side Image Maps 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-ssismap-1.mod" >
%xhtml-ssismap.mod;]]>

<!-- Param Element Module  ....................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-param.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-param.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-param.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Param Element 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-param-1.mod" >
%xhtml-param.mod;]]>

<!-- Embedded Object Module  ..................................... -->
<!-- override the attributes -->
<!ENTITY % object.attlist "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % xhtml-object.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-object.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-object.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Embedded Object 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-object-1.mod" >
%xhtml-object.mod;]]>

<!ATTLIST %object.qname;
      %Common.attrib;
      declare      ( declare )              #IMPLIED
      classid      %URI.datatype;           #IMPLIED
      codebase     %URI.datatype;           #IMPLIED
      data         %URI.datatype;           #IMPLIED
      type         %ContentType.datatype;   #IMPLIED
      codetype     %ContentType.datatype;   #IMPLIED
      archive      %URIs.datatype;          #IMPLIED
      standby      %Text.datatype;          #IMPLIED
      height       %Length.datatype;        #IMPLIED
      width        %Length.datatype;        #IMPLIED
      name         CDATA                    #IMPLIED
>

<!-- Tables Module ............................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-table.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-table.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-table.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Tables 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-table-1.mod" >
%xhtml-table.mod;]]>

<!-- Forms Module  ............................................... -->

<!-- override attribute definitions to accomodate tabindex in Common -->


<!ENTITY % input.attlist "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % select.attlist "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % textarea.attlist "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % button.attlist "IGNORE" >
<!ENTITY % xhtml-form.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-form.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-form.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Forms 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-form-1.mod" >
%xhtml-form.mod;]]>

<!ATTLIST %button.qname;
      %Common.attrib;
      name         CDATA                    #IMPLIED
      value        CDATA                    #IMPLIED
      type         ( button | submit | reset ) 'submit'
      disabled     ( disabled )             #IMPLIED
      accesskey    %Character.datatype;     #IMPLIED
>
<!ATTLIST %textarea.qname;
      %Common.attrib;
      name         CDATA                    #IMPLIED
      rows         %Number.datatype;        #REQUIRED
      cols         %Number.datatype;        #REQUIRED
      disabled     ( disabled )             #IMPLIED
      readonly     ( readonly )             #IMPLIED
      accesskey    %Character.datatype;     #IMPLIED
>
<!ATTLIST %select.qname;
      %Common.attrib;
      name         CDATA                    #IMPLIED
      size         %Number.datatype;        #IMPLIED
      multiple     ( multiple )             #IMPLIED
      disabled     ( disabled )             #IMPLIED
>
<!ENTITY % InputType.class
     "( text | password | checkbox | radio | submit
      | reset | file | hidden | image | button )"
>
<!ATTLIST %input.qname;
      %Common.attrib;
      type         %InputType.class;        'text'
      name         CDATA                    #IMPLIED
      value        CDATA                    #IMPLIED
      checked      ( checked )              #IMPLIED
      disabled     ( disabled )             #IMPLIED
      readonly     ( readonly )             #IMPLIED
      size         %Number.datatype;        #IMPLIED
      maxlength    %Number.datatype;        #IMPLIED
      src          %URI.datatype;           #IMPLIED
      alt          %Text.datatype;          #IMPLIED
      accesskey    %Character.datatype;     #IMPLIED
      accept       %ContentTypes.datatype;  #IMPLIED
>

<!-- Target Attribute Module  .................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-target.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-target.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-target.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Target 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-target-1.mod" >
%xhtml-target.mod;]]>

<!-- Legacy Markup ............................................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-legacy.module "IGNORE" >
<![%xhtml-legacy.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-legacy.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Legacy Markup 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-legacy-1.mod" >
%xhtml-legacy.mod;]]>

<!-- Document Structure Module (required)  ....................... -->
<!ENTITY % xhtml-struct.module "INCLUDE" >
<![%xhtml-struct.module;[
<!ENTITY % xhtml-struct.mod
     PUBLIC "-//W3C//ELEMENTS XHTML Document Structure 1.0//EN"
            "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-struct-1.mod" >
%xhtml-struct.mod;]]>
<!ENTITY % profile.attrib
     "profile      %URI.datatype;           '%XHTML.profile;'"
>
<!ENTITY % XHTML.version.attrib
     "version      %FPI.datatype;           #FIXED '%XHTML.version;'"
>

<!-- end of XHTML-ARIA DTD  ................................................ -->
<!-- ....................................................................... -->

8.2. Glossary

While some terms are defined in place, the following definitions are used throughout this document. Familiarity with W3C XHTML 1.1 Recommendation [XHTML] and the W3C XML 1.0 Recommendation [XML] is highly recommended to understand these definitions.

Accessibility API

Operating systems and other platforms provide a set of interfaces that expose information about objects and events to assistive technology. Assistive technologies use these interfaces to get information about and interact with those widgets. Examples of this are the Java Accessibility API [JAPI], Microsoft Active Accessibility [MSAA], the Mac OS X Accessibility Protocol [AX API], the Gnome Accessibility Toolkit (ATK) [ATK], and IAccessible2 [IA2].

Accessible Name

Each platform accessibility API provides a name property for user interface elements. The value of the accessible name may be derived from a visible (e.g., the visible text on a button) or invisible (e.g., the text alternative that describes an icon) property of the user interface element.

Assistive Technology

Hardware and/or software that acts as a user agent, or along with a mainstream user agent, to meet the interface requirements of users with disabilities beyond those offered by the mainstream user agents.

Services provided by assistive technology include alternative presentations (e.g., synthesized speech or magnified content), alternative input methods (e.g., speech recognition), additional navigation or orientation mechanisms, and content transformations (e.g., to make tables more accessible).

Assistive technologies often communicate with mainstream user agents by using and monitoring accessibility APIs.

The distinction between mainstream user agents and assistive technologies is not absolute. Many mainstream user agents provide some features to assist individuals with disabilities. The basic difference is that mainstream user agents target broad and diverse audiences that usually include people with and without disabilities, assistive technologies target users with specific disabilities. The assistance provided by an assistive technology is more specific and appropriate to the needs of its target users.

Examples of assistive technologies that are important in the context of this document include the following:

  • screen magnifiers, which are used to to enlarge and improve the visual readability of rendered text and images;
  • screen readers, which are most-often used to convey information through synthesized speech, sound iconography, or Braille;
  • text-to-speech software, which is used to convert text into synthetic speech;
  • speech recognition software, which is used to allow spoken control and dictation;
  • alternate keyboards (including head pointers, single switches, and sip/puff devices), which are used to simulate the keyboard;
  • alternate pointing devices, which are used to simulate mouse pointing and clicking.
Attribute

In this specification, attribute is used as it is in markup languages. Attributes are structural features added to elements to provide information about the states and properties of the object represented by the element.

Characteristic

An assertion which can be a constraint.

Class

An abstract type of object.

Element

In this specification, element is used as it is in markup languages. Elements are the structural elements in markup language that contains the data profile for objects.

Event

A programmatic message used to communicate discrete changes in the state of an object to other objects in a computational system. User input to a web page is commonly mediated through abstract events that describe the interaction and can provide notice of changes to the state of a document object. In some programming languages, events are more commonly known as notifications.

Managed State

@@

Namespace

A collection of related names. Qualifying a name in terms of the namespace to which it belongs allows these names to be distinguished from names in other namespaces that are spelled the same. Namespaces in this document are used in accordance with Namespaces in XML [XML-NAMES].

Object

A "thing" in the perceptual user experience, instantiated in markup languages by one or more elements, and converted into the object-oriented pattern by user agents. Objects are instances of classes, which define the general characteristics of object instances. A single DOM object may or may not correspond with a single object in an accessibility API. An object in an accessibility API may encapsulate one or more DOM objects.

Property

Attributes that are essential to the nature of a given object. As such, they are less likely to change than states; a change of a property may significantly impact the meaning or presentation of an object. Properties mainly provide limitations on objects from the most general case implied by roles without properties applied.

Relationship

A connection between two distinct, articulable things. Relationships may be of various types to indicate which object labels another, controls another, etc.

Role

An indicator of type. The object's role is the class of objects of which it is a member. This semantic association allows tools to present and support interaction with the object in a manner that is consistent with user expectations about other objects of that type.

State

A state is a dynamic property expressing characteristics of an object that may change in response to user action or automated processes. States do not affect the essential nature of the object, but represent data associated with the object or user interaction possibilities.

User Agent

Any software that retrieves and renders Web content for users, such as Web browsers, media players, plug-ins, and other programs including assistive technologies.

Value

A literal that concretizes the information expressed by a state or property, or text content.

Widget

@@

8.3. References

This section is informative.

[ARIA-PRACTICES]
WAI-ARIA Best Practices. L. Pappas, R. Schwerdtfeger, M. Cooper, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 4 February 2008. This version of WAI-ARIA Best Practices is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-aria-practices-20080204/. Latest version of WAI-ARIA Best Practices available at http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/.
[ARIA-PRIMER]
WAI-ARIA Primer. L. Pappas, R. Schwerdtfeger, M. Cooper, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 4 February 2008. This version of WAI-ARIA Primer is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-aria-primer-20080204/. Latest version of WAI-ARIA Primer available at http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-primer/.
[ARIA-ROADMAP]
Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA Roadmap), R. Schwerdtfeger, Editor, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 4 February 2008. This version of WAI-ARIA Roadmap is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-aria-roadmap-20080204/. Latest version of WAI-ARIA Roadmap available at http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-roadmap/.
[ATK]
Gnome Accessibility Toolkit. Available at http://library.gnome.org/devel/atk/unstable/.
[CSS]
Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 (CSS2) Specification, I. Jacobs, B. Bos, H. Lie, C. Lilley, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 12 May 1998, http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-19980512/. Latest version of CSS2 available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/.
[DOM]
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification, L. Wood, G. Nicol, A. Le Hors, J. Robie, S. Byrne, P. Le Hégaret, M. Champion, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 13 November 2000, http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113/. Latest version of DOM Core available at http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/.
[IA2]
IAccessible2. Available at http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Accessibility/IAccessible2.
[JAPI]
Java Accessibility API (JAPI). Available at http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/accessibility/index.jsp.
[MSAA]
Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA). Available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms697707.aspx.
[OWL]
OWL Web Ontology Language Overview, D. L. McGuinness, F. van Harmelen, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 10 February 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-owl-features-20040210/. Latest version of OWL Overview available at http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-features/.
[RDF]
Resource Description Framework (RDF): Concepts and Abstract Syntax, G. Klyne, J. J. Carroll, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 10 February 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-concepts-20040210/. Latest version of RDF Concepts available at http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/.
[RDFS]
RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema, D. Brickley, R. V. Guha, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 10 February 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-schema-20040210/. Latest version of RDF Schema available at http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/.
[RFC2119]
Key words for use in RFCs to indicate requirement levels, RFC 2119, S. Bradner, March 1997. Available at: http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt.
[SMIL]
Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 1.0 Specification, P. Hoschka, Editor, W3C Recommendation, 15 June 1998, http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-smil-19980615/. Latest version of SMIL available at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-smil/.
[SVG]
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification, D. Jackson, J. Ferraiolo, 藤沢, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 14 January 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-SVG11-20030114/. Latest version of SVG available at http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/.
[UAAG]
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, I. Jacobs, J. Gunderson, E. Hansen, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 17 December 2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-UAAG10-20021217/. Latest version available at http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/.
[XFORMS]
XForms 1.0 (Third Edition), J. Boyer, Editor, W3C Recommendation, 29 October 2007, http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xforms-20071029/. Latest version of XForms available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms/.
[XHTML]
XHTML™ 1.0 The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second Edition), S. Pemberton, Editor, W3C Recommendation, 1 August 2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/. Latest version of XHTML 1.0 available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/.
[XHTML2]
XHTML™ 2.0, M. Birbeck, J. Axelsson, S. Pemberton, B. Epperson, S. McCarron, M. Ishikawa, A. Navarro, M. Dubinko, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 26 July 2006, http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xhtml2-20060726/. Latest version of XHTML 2.0 available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/.
[XHTML-ROLES]
XHTML Role Attribute Module, T. V. Raman, M. Birbeck, R. Schwerdtfeger, S. McCarron, S. Pemberton, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 4 October 2007, http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xhtml-role-20071004/. Latest version of XML Role Attribute Module available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-role/.
[XML]
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fourth Edition), T. Bray, J. Paoli, E. Maler, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, F. Yergeau, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 16 August 2006, http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/. Latest version of XML available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/.
[XML-EVENTS]
XML Events 2, M. Birbeck, S. McCarron, Editors, W3C Working Draft (work in progress), 16 February 2007, http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xml-events-20070216/. Latest version of XML Events available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-events/.
[XML-NAMES]
Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Second Edition), D. Hollander, A. Layman, R. Tobin, T. Bray, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 16 August 2006, http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-names-20060816/. Latest version of XML Namespaces available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-names/.
[XSD]
XML Schema Part 0: Primer Second Edition, D. C. Fallside, P. Walmsley, Editors, W3C Recommendation, 28 October 2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-0-20041028/. Latest version of XML Schema Primer available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0/.

8.4. Acknowledgments

This section is informative.

The following people contributed to the development of this document.

8.4.1. Participants in the PFWG at the time of publication

  • Jim Allan (Invited Expert, Texas School for the Blind)
  • Chris Blouch (AOL)
  • David Bolter (Invited Expert, University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre)
  • Sally Cain (Royal National Institute for the Blind)
  • Charles Chen (Google, Inc.)
  • Michael Cooper (W3C/MIT)
  • James Craig (Apple, Inc.)
  • Dimitar Denev (Frauenhofer Gesellschaft)
  • Donald Evans (AOL)
  • Steve Faulkner (Invited Expert, The Paciello Group)
  • Kentarou Fukuda (IBM Corporation)
  • Alfred S. Gilman (Invited Expert)
  • Andres Gonzalez (Adobe Systems Inc.)
  • Georgios Grigoriadis (SAP AG)
  • Jon Gunderson (Invited Expert, UIUC)
  • Sean Hayes (Microsoft Corporation)
  • John Hrvatin (Microsoft Corporation)
  • Kenny Johar (Vision Australia)
  • Masahiko Kaneko (Microsoft Corporation)
  • Diego La Monica (International Webmasters Association / HTML Writers Guild (IWA-HWG))
  • Aaron Leventhal (IBM Corporation)
  • Alex Li (SAP AG)
  • William Loughborough (Invited Expert)
  • Anders Markussen (Opera Software)
  • Matthew May (Adobe Systems Inc.)
  • Charles McCathieNevile (Opera Software)
  • James Nurthen (Oracle Corporation)
  • Joshue O'Connor (Invited Expert)
  • Lisa Pappas (Society for Technical Communication (STC))
  • Simon Pieters (Opera Software)
  • David Poehlman (Invited Expert)
  • T.V. Raman (Google, Inc.)
  • Gregory Rosmaita (Invited Expert)
  • Tony Ross (Microsoft Corporation)
  • Janina Sajka (Invited Expert, The Linux Foundation)
  • Martin Schaus (SAP AG)
  • Joseph Scheuhammer (Invited Expert, University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre)
  • Stefan Schnabel (SAP AG)
  • Richard Schwerdtfeger (IBM Corporation)
  • Lisa Seeman (Invited Expert, Aqueous)
  • Cynthia Shelly (Microsoft Corporation)
  • Marc Silbey (Microsoft Corporation)
  • Henny Swan (Opera Software)
  • Gottfried Zimmermann (Invited Expert, Access Technologies Group)

8.4.2. Other previously active PFWG participants and other contributors to the Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification

Special thanks to Aaron Leventhal for effort and insight as he implemented a working prototype of accessibility API bindings.

Simon Bates, Judy Brewer (W3C/MIT), Christian Cohrs, Becky Gibson (IBM), Andres Gonzalez (Adobe), Jeff Grimes (Oracle), Barbara Hartel, Earl Johnson (Sun), Jael Kurz, Linda Mao (Microsoft), Shane McCarron (ApTest), Dave Pawson (RNIB), Henri Sivonen (Mozilla), Vitaly Sourikov, Mike Squillace (IBM), Ryan Williams (Oracle), Tom Wlodkowski.

8.4.3. Enabling funders

This publication has been funded in part with Federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) under contract number ED05CO0039. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.