navigation role (aria)

Expectation: convey its role

Rationale:

A screen reader user needs to know how they can interact with the element. Voice control software might use the role to help users activate controls that do not have a visible name.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: NA

Examples:

• A screen reader might announce an element as something like "<name>, <role>"
• A screen reader might imply the role by the presence of certain context roles
• Voice Control software might let the user say something like "click, <role>".
• Voice Control software might let the user say something like "show numbers", and interactive roles will be flagged with numbers.

Expectation: convey its name

Rationale:

A screen reader user needs to know what to enter.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: NA

Expectation: convey the boundaries of the element

Rationale:

A user needs to know when they enter and exit an element

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: MUST
• Voice Control: NA

Examples:

• A screen reader might announce the role of the element when entering and say something like "leaving" when exiting.
• A screen reader might not explicitly announce entering and existing the element, but instead imply that the is in the containing object by conveying the roles of required children (options in a listbox for example).
• A screen reader might announce position in set information such as "1 of 6".
• A screen reader might not convey boundaries if the content fits on a single line

Expectation: provide shortcuts to jump to this role

Rationale:

Screen reader users might want to quickly navigate to elements of this type.

Strength of this expectation for different types of assistive technologies:

• Screen Readers: SHOULD
• Voice Control: NA