HTML Guide
Using aria-required on a div element requires more context about that element, by providing one of the attributes aria-expanded, aria-valuemax, aria-valuemin, aria-valuenow, role.
When possible, you should prefer semantic tags like input, select and textarea, and use the required attribute, but when form controls are created using non-semantic elements, such as a div element, the aria-required attribute should be included with a value of true to indicate to assistive technologies that user input is required on the element for the form to be submittable. In that case, other attributes might be needed to make the element valid.
For example, we could build a radiogroup using a div like this:
<div aria-required="true">
<div data-value="One"></div> 1
<div data-value="Two"></div> 2
<div data-value="Three"></div> 3
</div>
This HTML snippet would then be decorated using CSS and added functionality using JavaScript. However, the W3C validator will complain that the element div is missing one of the attributes aria-expanded, aria-valuemax, aria-valuemin, aria-valuenow, role.
We can fix that by adding the appropiate role to that div element, like this:
<div aria-required="true" role="radiogroup">
<div data-value="One"></div> 1
<div data-value="Two"></div> 2
<div data-value="Three"></div> 3
</div>Here is an example showing how to add the “role” attribute to the “div” element:
<div role="region">
<!-- Your content goes here -->
</div>
In this example, the role attribute is added with the value radiogroup. You can choose the appropriate ARIA role based on the purpose or role of your div element.
Remember to also provide the necessary values for the specified attributes if you are adding aria-valuemax, aria-valuemin, or aria-valuenow to ensure proper accessibility and usability of your content.
Learn more:
Related W3C validator issues
There can only be one visible <main> element in a document. If more are needed (for example for switching between them with JavaScript), only one can be visible, the others should be hidden toggling the hidden attribute.
Example of 2 main elements, where only one is visible:
<main>
<h1>Active main element</h1>
<!-- content -->
</main>
<main hidden>
<h1>Hidden main element</h1>
<!-- content -->
</main>To fix the W3C HTML Validator issue stating that an element with a role="menuitem" must be contained in, or owned by, an element with role="menubar" or role="menu", you need to ensure that your menuitem elements are properly nested within a menubar or menu element. This is important for accessibility, as it helps assistive technologies understand the structure and relationship of the elements.
The menuitem role indicates the element is an option in a set of choices contained by a menu or menubar.
Here is a step-by-step guide to fixing this issue:
1. Using role="menubar"
If your menuitem elements are part of a horizontal menu (like a navigation bar), they should be nested within an element with role="menubar".
Example:
<nav role="menubar">
<div role="menuitem">Home</div>
<div role="menuitem">About</div>
<div role="menuitem">Contact</div>
</nav>2. Using role="menu"
If your menuitem elements are part of a submenu or a vertical menu, they should be contained within an element with role="menu".
Example:
<div role="menu">
<div role="menuitem">Item 1</div>
<div role="menuitem">Item 2</div>
<div role="menuitem">Item 3</div>
</div>Ensuring Proper Nesting
Ensure that all your menuitem elements are either directly or indirectly (via a child-parent relationship) contained within a menubar or menu element.
Complete Example with Nested Menus:
Here is a more complex example, including nested menus for a drop-down scenario.
Example:
<nav role="menubar">
<div role="menuitem">Home</div>
<div role="menuitem">
About
<div role="menu">
<div role="menuitem">Team</div>
<div role="menuitem">History</div>
</div>
</div>
<div role="menuitem">Contact</div>
</nav>In this example, the main navigation (menubar) contains menuitem elements, and one of those menuitem elements contains a nested menu with additional menuitem elements inside it.
By ensuring your menuitem elements are contained within appropriate parent elements (menubar or menu), you will resolve the W3C HTML Validator issue and improve your web page’s accessibility.
Elements with the role tab must either be a child of an element with the tablist role, or have their id part of the aria-owns property of a tablist.
An element with the tab role controls the visibility of an associated element with the tabpanel role. The common user experience pattern is a group of visual tabs above, or to the side of, a content area, and selecting a different tab changes the content and makes the selected tab more prominent than the other tabs.
Example:
<div class="tabs">
<div role="tablist" aria-label="Sample Tabs">
<button role="tab" aria-selected="true" aria-controls="panel-1" id="tab-1" tabindex="0">
First Tab
</button>
<button role="tab" aria-selected="false" aria-controls="panel-2" id="tab-2" tabindex="-1">
Second Tab
</button>
</div>
<div id="panel-1" role="tabpanel" tabindex="0" aria-labelledby="tab-1">
<p>Content for the first panel</p>
</div>
<div id="panel-2" role="tabpanel" tabindex="0" aria-labelledby="tab-2" hidden>
<p>Content for the second panel</p>
</div>
</div>A button element, or an element with the role=button attribute, is not allowed to be nested inside an <a> element.
When an img element has an empty alt attribute, its role is implicitly decorative, so it must not specify a role attribute.
The aria-required attribute is used to indicate to screen reader users that a form input is required. As there is now in HTML a general required attribute which works with most user agents, it’s unnecessary to use both at the same time. In general, you can rely solely on the required attribute, unless you want to provide backwards compatibility on old screen reader software versions.
Example:
<form action="order.">
<!-- This will raise a warning on unnecesary attributes -->
<input id="city" name="city" aria-required="true" required />
<!-- You can use this instead -->
<input id="city" name="city" required />
</form>The alert role can be used to tell the user an element has been dynamically updated. Screen readers will instantly start reading out the updated content when the role is added. The element <ul> doesn’t accept this kind of role, consider using other element like <p> or <div>.
The alert role is used to communicate an important and usually time-sensitive message to the user. When this role is added to an element, the browser will send out an accessible alert event to assistive technology products which can then notify the user about it. The alert role is most useful for information that requires the user’s immediate attention.
The aria-expanded attribute can only be true, false, or undefined.
This attribute indicates whether a grouping element is expanded or collapsed.
An element like <h1>, <h2>, etc., used to define a heading, does not accept the button role.
The following HTML code is invalid because the <h2> element can’t have role="button"
<h2 role="button">Some heading</h2>Instead, you can nest the <h2> inside a <div> with that role. In this case however, browsers automatically apply role presentation to all descendant elements of any button element as it is a role that does not support semantic children.
<div role="button">
<h2>Some heading</h2>
</div>A <li> element, used to define a list item, does not accept the button role.
This HTML code is invalid because the <li> elements can’t have role="button":
<ul>
<li role="button">One</li>
<li role="button">Two</li>
</ul>