About This HTML Issue
The aria-describedby attribute cannot be an empty string — it must either contain valid ID references or be removed entirely.
The aria-describedby attribute accepts one or more ID values (separated by spaces) that point to elements providing additional descriptive text for the current element. When a screen reader focuses on the element, it reads the content of the referenced elements to give the user more context.
Setting aria-describedby="" is invalid because the attribute expects at least one valid IDREF — a non-empty string that matches the id of another element in the page. An empty value doesn’t reference anything and creates a validation error. If no description is needed, simply omit the attribute altogether.
This commonly happens when a template or JavaScript dynamically sets the attribute but provides an empty fallback value instead of removing the attribute entirely.
Invalid Example
<label for="email">Email</label>
<input type="email" id="email" aria-describedby="">Fixed Examples
If there is no description to reference, remove the attribute:
<label for="email">Email</label>
<input type="email" id="email">
If a description exists, point to its id:
<label for="email">Email</label>
<input type="email" id="email" aria-describedby="email-hint">
<p id="email-hint">We'll never share your email with anyone.</p>
If you’re generating the attribute dynamically, make sure your code removes aria-describedby entirely rather than setting it to an empty string when no hint is available.
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