The element “a” should not appear as a descendant of an element with the attribute “role=menuitem”.

An <a> element is nested inside an element with role="menuitem", which ARIA in HTML doesn't allow.

A menu item is a single control. Screen readers announce it as one item in the menu, and the menu keyboard pattern moves focus from item to item with the arrow keys. ARIA in HTML lets an element with role="menuitem" contain phrasing content only, with no interactive elements inside it. A link inside the menu item is a second control, and the menu pattern has no place for it.

When the <a> has an href, the validator reports a second warning for the same element, "The element "a" with the attribute "href" should not appear as a descendant of an element with the attribute "role=menuitem"." Both go away with the same fix. Validator builds from mid 2026 reported this check as an error, with "must not appear" in place of "should not appear".

The usual cause is a list where the <li> has role="menuitem" and the link sits inside it. Move role="menuitem" onto the <a> itself, and give the <li> role="none" to remove its list item semantics. Each menu item is then a single interactive element.

If the list is ordinary site navigation, drop role="menu" and role="menuitem" altogether. The menu roles are meant for application menus like the ones in desktop software, and they expect JavaScript that moves focus with the arrow keys. A <nav> element with a plain list of links needs no ARIA roles.

Invalid example

<ul role="menu" aria-label="Account">
  <li role="menuitem"><a href="/profile">Profile</a></li>
  <li role="menuitem"><a href="/settings">Settings</a></li>
</ul>

Valid example

<ul role="menu" aria-label="Account">
  <li role="none"><a role="menuitem" href="/profile">Profile</a></li>
  <li role="none"><a role="menuitem" href="/settings">Settings</a></li>
</ul>

Valid example for site navigation

<nav aria-label="Account">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/profile">Profile</a></li>
    <li><a href="/settings">Settings</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>

Learn more:

MDN Reference

MDN Web Docs: ARIA menuitem role

→

W3C Reference

ARIA in HTML

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W3C Reference

ARIA Authoring Practices Guide: Menu and Menubar Pattern

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