What is Accessible Name? · Rocket Validator Glossary

The accessible name answers a simple question for assistive technology users: "What is this control called?"

Why accessible names matter

Without a valid name, a control may be announced as "button" or "link" with no context. That makes core actions impossible to discover.

How accessible names work

Browsers compute names from several sources with precedence rules. In many cases:

aria-labelledby
aria-label
Native label or element text
title as fallback

Consistency between visible labels and spoken names is also important for voice input users.

Code examples

<!-- Missing name -->
<button><svg><!-- icon --></svg></button>

<!-- Explicit accessible name -->
<button aria-label="Open menu"><svg><!-- icon --></svg></button>

<!-- Native association -->
<label for="email">Email</label>
<input id="email" type="email">

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of HTML attributes that add accessibility semantics such as roles, states, and properties to custom UI components.

Alt text (alternative text) is a short written description added to an image's HTML code that conveys the image's content and function to users who cannot see it, primarily through screen readers.

A screen reader is assistive software that converts on-screen content into speech or braille output, allowing blind and low-vision users to navigate websites through structure and semantics.

Semantic HTML uses elements that describe meaning and structure, such as <main>, <nav>, and <button>, so browsers and assistive technologies can correctly interpret page content.

Landmark roles are specific ARIA roles or HTML5 semantic elements that define the major structural regions of a web page, enabling assistive technology users to quickly identify and navigate to key sections such as the banner, navigation, main content, and footer.

A live region is an area of a web page that dynamically updates its content and communicates those changes to assistive technologies like screen readers, without requiring the user to navigate to the updated area.

ARIA live politeness settings control how assistive technologies announce dynamic content changes, using the aria-live attribute with values of off, polite, or assertive to determine whether updates interrupt the user immediately, wait for a pause, or remain silent.

In WAI-ARIA, roles, states, and properties are the three categories of attributes that define what a UI element is, what condition it is in, and what characteristics it has, enabling assistive technologies to present and interact with web content accurately.

ARIA labeling techniques are a set of methods using WAI-ARIA attributes—primarily aria-label, aria-labelledby, and aria-describedby—to provide accessible names and descriptions to interactive elements, regions, and widgets so that assistive technologies can convey their purpose to users.

Heading hierarchy is the structured ordering of HTML heading elements (<h1> through <h6>) in a logical, nested sequence that reflects the document's content outline, enabling users—especially those relying on assistive technologies—to understand and navigate a page's organization.

Form label association is the programmatic connection between a form control (such as an input, select, or textarea) and its descriptive label, enabling assistive technologies to announce the purpose of the control when it receives focus.

ARIA hidden and inert content refers to techniques that remove elements from the accessibility tree or disable their interactivity, preventing screen readers and keyboard users from encountering decorative, redundant, or temporarily irrelevant content such as background page content behind a modal dialog.

An accessible description is a supplementary text string, computed by the browser's accessibility API, that provides additional context or instructions about a user interface element beyond what its accessible name conveys.

Accessible Name Computation is the algorithm defined by the W3C that browsers and assistive technologies use to determine the text name of an interactive element, resolving multiple possible sources—such as aria-labelledby, aria-label, HTML <label>, and element content—into a single accessible name string.

The accessibility tree is a parallel structure to the DOM tree that browsers construct to represent the semantic meaning of a web page for assistive technologies such as screen readers, braille displays, and voice control software.

Text alternatives are textual substitutes for non-text content such as images, icons, videos, and controls, enabling people who cannot perceive the original content to understand its meaning and purpose through assistive technologies like screen readers.

Browser Accessibility API Mapping is the process by which web browsers translate HTML elements, attributes, and ARIA annotations into structured data exposed through platform-specific accessibility APIs, enabling assistive technologies like screen readers to understand and interact with web content.

Input purpose and autocomplete refer to the practice of programmatically identifying the purpose of form fields using the HTML autocomplete attribute, enabling browsers and assistive technologies to automatically fill in user data and present fields in ways that are easier to understand and complete.

Visible label and name matching is the accessibility requirement that a component's programmatic accessible name must contain the text of its visible label, so that users who rely on speech input, screen readers, or other assistive technologies can activate and identify controls consistently.

Data tables require specific HTML markup to be accessible, including proper use of <th>, <caption>, scope, and headers attributes so that screen readers can associate data cells with their corresponding row and column headers.

Embedded content and iframes accessibility refers to the set of practices that make content loaded inside <iframe>, <video>, <audio>, <object>, and similar elements perceivable, operable, and understandable for all users, including those who rely on assistive technologies.

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Accessible Name

Why accessible names matter

How accessible names work

Code examples

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Accessible Name

Why accessible names matter

How accessible names work

Code examples

Related terms

Help us improve this glossary term

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Ship accessible websites, faster.